Without the benefit of seeing Kyrie play under Brad Stevens yet, I would currently rank them as Curry, Paul, Westbrook, and Irving.
Can we please pump the brakes on the one year trial PG that was James Harden. I see people downgrading Irving because of his defense, but at the same time forget that Harden may be the worst defender in the history of the game. Lets not forget that he also quits during the middle of plays. He is also awful in the playoffs, where he is almost a virtual lock to chock.
Curry, Paul, Westbrook and Harden are all in offensive systems built around them. Where as Cleveland had their offense built around LeBron. Also, most teams outlet the ball to their PG to create easy baskets on fast breaks. Irving didn't even have those opportunities since LeBron would get the outlet and is a 250+ pound locomotive.
As I mentioned, Cleveland ran their offense through LeBron, which is perfectly understandable. LeBron averaged a career high 8.7 assists per game last season. I fully expect Irving to excel in an offense built around him by Brad Stevens, in particular with creating opportunities for teammates. We already know he is a proven playoff performer, especially in the clutch. I could also see Kyrie ranked as high as #1, playing under Stevens.
1. Harden just almost won the MVP (2nd). He put up 29/11/8 and as bad as he is on defense, Kyrie is worse given virtually every metric. He also produced far more in the playoffs and has consistently done so. Kyrie can't hold Harden's jock.
2. Curry, Paul, Westbrook and Harden all have proven that they should have offensive systems built around them. Kyrie hasn't. Now maybe that's unfair because they do have the best player in his generation, but there's at least an equal chance that Kyrie looks a lot better because he's getting fed open looks and getting 1-on-1 coverage because Lebron is doing the heavy lifting.
3. The rest of your post is nothing but excuses, which all boil down to the same one. "Lebron is too good, he distributes the ball too well, he's better on the break...blah blah blah". This isn't a ringing endorsement of Kyrie's abilities if Lebron is better at every single facet of the game.
Lebron just put up 33/12/10 in the MVP finals and was blown out. Now why was that? Was it Lebron was too good? Or was it that other players, including Irving, didn't step up? Sure, Irving put in 29/4/4, but that doesn't do much good when the guy opposite you puts up 27/8/10.
The last 3 years Lebron has sat 22 games. Kyrie has played in many of them. Cleveland won three of those games. The last two years - when Kyrie should be rounding into the best player he can be - he's 1-5 in those games and the only win is a 1 point victory against Dallas. He's had a negative plus/minus in 5 of those 6. That has to concern anyone who thinks that Kyrie is a budding superstar who is somehow being held back by Lebron
because he surely hasn't shown he can step up when he's had the (albeit small) opportunity.
Many of you are counting on some sort of massive leap from Irving. That Brad will get him to play defense. That somehow he'll become a better distributor because Lebron isn't distributing. That he'll be able to shoulder a scoring load when he's the #1 scorer and teams key on him. That he won't continue to make inane comments (it ain't just one, folks) or act like a child and not speak to anyone during the playoffs. None of these are sure bets and some of these have less than a 50/50 chance of coming true.
As I said, he's probably somewhere between the 8th and 11th best PG in the league right now and there's a not-insignificant chance he won't get much better than that. Stop dreaming about him being #3 because he has a mountain to climb before he's anywhere near that.