Poll: Irving's Ranking Of All Starting PG's Now Playing W/Boston?

[JBcat]

Ahead: Westbrook, Curry, Harden, Wall, CP3

Essentially tied: IT, Lillard

So, somewhere between 6th and 8th.

I would put Wall in the same tier as Kyrie, IT and Lillard. But our I think of the 4 in that tier, Kyrie has the best chance to make it to the top tier and be a top 3 PG in the league.

I pretty much agree.  What has me more excited is not necessarily the next year or 2, but roughly 3 years out when Irving is 28.  Curry, Westbrook, and Harden will all be in their early 30's and most likely slowing down. Paul will be long past his prime, and only Wall and Lilliard just a little older will be smack right in their prime.  I don't see any younger PGs challenging Irving anytime soon.  So you could make an educated guess he will be a top 3 PG by then. Plus you then have Brown and Tatum coming of age, Hayward still in his prime, and we would need to find a younger high quality big.

It is a risky deal, but the alternative was maxing IT pushing age 30. No protection on the Nets pick hurts but we really don't know what other offers were on the table.

[loco_91]

1. Curry 2-5 Harden/Westbrook/Wall/CP3 in any order 6. Kyrie

[Vermont Green]

These questions seem simple but are hard to define.  I considered it based on the performance that I expect from each PG over the next season or two, not based on past seasons or cumulative career accomplishments.

With that consideration, think of it as on the playground where you get to pick from a line.  I just don't see anyone picking Lillard or Wall over Kyrie.  CP3 is a harder call because he is really good but he also could drop off.  Likely his stats will drop playing with Harden, but that doesn't mean he is not still playing at a high level.

Then there is IT.  IT had one generationally good season. If you think he is going to repeat that for the next couple of seasons, you rank him pretty high.  Not higher than Westbrook or Curry and maybe not even higher than Irving but high.  I would not bet on him maintaining that level for several reasons so I would definitely have Irving higher than IT.

My vote was #4.  That seems to be about the average of all the votes.  In reality he is probably not all that far ahead of Lillard, Wall, IT, etc. and not all that far behind Westbrook, Harden, etc.

[crimson_stallion]

And yet cp3 never even gets to the WCF even playing on stacked rosters. So much for clutch elevated gameplay in losing efforts

Ill take the winner anytime over him

Stacked Rosters?  Give me a break.  The best talent that Chris Paul has EVER played alongside is Blake Griffin - and even when Griffin is healthy (which is pretty much never) he's still massively overrated player who I really wouldn't want on my team.  He is basically a modern day Amare Stoudemire.  Zero defence, all style, no substance and a poor attitude.

Other then that the best teammate's he's ever had were what - David West?  Eric Gordon?  Deandre Jordan?  JJ Reddick?  C'mon man.  He's been on GOOD teams, but he's never been on a GREAT team. 

Yet he's been competing in the west against teams like the Lakers (Kobe, Gasol, Odom, Bynum), the Thunder (Kevin Durant, Westbrook and Harden), Golden State (Durant, Curry, Klay, Dramond), etc.  It doesn't matter how clutch the man is, he's not competing with that when the best support he has is an oft-injured circus star in Griffin.   

The only player I can think of who has gone further with comparable or less talent would be Kawhi Leonard - and that Spurs team will be dominant as long as Greg Popovich is the coach.

[Moranis]

And yet cp3 never even gets to the WCF even playing on stacked rosters. So much for clutch elevated gameplay in losing efforts

Ill take the winner anytime over him

Stacked Rosters?  Give me a break.  The best talent that Chris Paul has EVER played alongside is Blake Griffin - and even when Griffin is healthy (which is pretty much never) he's still massively overrated player who I really wouldn't want on my team.  He is basically a modern day Amare Stoudemire.  Zero defence, all style, no substance and a poor attitude.

Other then that the best teammate's he's ever had were what - David West?  Eric Gordon?  Deandre Jordan?  JJ Reddick?  C'mon man.  He's been on GOOD teams, but he's never been on a GREAT team. 

Yet he's been competing in the west against teams like the Lakers (Kobe, Gasol, Odom, Bynum), the Thunder (Kevin Durant, Westbrook and Harden), Golden State (Durant, Curry, Klay, Dramond), etc.  It doesn't matter how clutch the man is, he's not competing with that when the best support he has is an oft-injured circus star in Griffin.   

The only player I can think of who has gone further with comparable or less talent would be Kawhi Leonard - and that Spurs team will be dominant as long as Greg Popovich is the coach.

I agree with the premise, but these are the teams that Chris Paul's teams have lost to in the playoffs starting with the earliest

3 playoffs in New Orleans
San Antonio
Denver
Los Angeles

6 playoff seasons in LA
San Antonio
Memphis
Oklahoma City
Houston (this was the 3-1 choke job series though CP only played 5 games he missed 2 games the Clippers won)
Portland (CP and Blake each played in just 4 of the 6 games)
Utah

So you talk about the elite teams in the West, but for the most part that wasn't who Paul's teams were losing to, especially in LA.  The last three years, they lost to Utah, Portland, and Houston, and you can add Memphis 5 seasons ago with just OKC as an elite level team in that mix.  In New Orleans that was much more the case with his 3 playoff teams losing to San Antonio, Los Angeles, and then that very good, though not elite, Denver squad, but LA clearly underperformed with Paul.  Some of that is injury, though some of it is not.

[Phantom255x]

And yet cp3 never even gets to the WCF even playing on stacked rosters. So much for clutch elevated gameplay in losing efforts

Ill take the winner anytime over him

Stacked Rosters?  Give me a break.  The best talent that Chris Paul has EVER played alongside is Blake Griffin - and even when Griffin is healthy (which is pretty much never) he's still massively overrated player who I really wouldn't want on my team.  He is basically a modern day Amare Stoudemire.  Zero defence, all style, no substance and a poor attitude.

Other then that the best teammate's he's ever had were what - David West?  Eric Gordon?  Deandre Jordan?  JJ Reddick?  C'mon man.  He's been on GOOD teams, but he's never been on a GREAT team. 

Yet he's been competing in the west against teams like the Lakers (Kobe, Gasol, Odom, Bynum), the Thunder (Kevin Durant, Westbrook and Harden), Golden State (Durant, Curry, Klay, Dramond), etc.  It doesn't matter how clutch the man is, he's not competing with that when the best support he has is an oft-injured circus star in Griffin.   

The only player I can think of who has gone further with comparable or less talent would be Kawhi Leonard - and that Spurs team will be dominant as long as Greg Popovich is the coach.

Still, all that talent and the Clippers have yet to even make it to the WCF.

And I'm talking about even before the Warriors became what they are today. Yes, West was still fairly strong back then too with those Lakers, Spurs and Thunder teams, but if CP3 is really a superstar, he should have helped lead LAC to at least a WCF appeareance.

The closest they got was when they were up on HOU but then choked away that lead.

And even this year, the Clippers played the Jazz AT HOME in a Game 7 vs. Utah. They didn't have Griffin. CP3 needed to step up big time, and he just didn't. He struggled, and Clips lost.

[smokeablount]

And yet cp3 never even gets to the WCF even playing on stacked rosters. So much for clutch elevated gameplay in losing efforts

Ill take the winner anytime over him

The winner that isn't his team's best player, doesn't mean much.  Irving can't take credit for playoff wins until he is the team's leader.  It is just a whole different ball game when you have to do the work and not ride someone else's coattails.  Maybe Irving will be able to prove his merit and worth, or maybe not.  It was a gamble worth taking for the Celtics imo, but the reality is it was a tremendous gamble.

This is true, but it doesn't sound like a bigger gamble than hoping the Nets finish last in the league and then letting ping pong balls determine your 25% chance at the #1 pick.

[smokeablount]

1. Curry 2-5 Harden/Westbrook/Wall/CP3 in any order 6. Kyrie

I voted #5 but I think 4-6 is the realistic range, and that it's realistic to say we have 2-3 top 5 playoff guys at their positions in Kyrie, hopefully Hayward, and maybe Al based on last year and the lack of quality centers deep in the playoffs. Most of the top young guns are out by round 1 if they even make the playoffs.

EDIT: Chris Paul to me is the 2nd or 3rd best PG of all time, but I think this year is a new year to evaluate him and Kyrie both in the landscape of the top PGs.

[tarheelsxxiii]

And yet cp3 never even gets to the WCF even playing on stacked rosters. So much for clutch elevated gameplay in losing efforts

Ill take the winner anytime over him

The winner that isn't his team's best player, doesn't mean much.  Irving can't take credit for playoff wins until he is the team's leader.  It is just a whole different ball game when you have to do the work and not ride someone else's coattails.  Maybe Irving will be able to prove his merit and worth, or maybe not.  It was a gamble worth taking for the Celtics imo, but the reality is it was a tremendous gamble.

It's not all that great of a gamble.  Irving also bailed out LeBron many times when they needed a big shot.  He's also extremely marketable and will be handed the keys to an PG-centered offense that was refined for IT. 

[Big333223]

It was supposed to say "almost". Sorry for the omission but it doesn't change a [dang] thing.

If we asked the same question a week ago, the answers would have almost certainly been between 6th and 10th. Now that he's in green we have people thinking he's top 3. It's Homerism at its worst. Irving didn't get better yet and he hasn't done particularly well with the few opportunities he's had to be The Man.

I'm not writing off his abilities. I'm not writing off the ability for Brad to improve a player. But let's not pretend he's suddenly a top 3 stud because he plays on the Celtics. He has to prove that he is.

There is certainly homerism, but... Let's say someone's list of PG's at the end of the season was something like Curry, Westbrook, Harden, Paul, Isaiah Thomas, Wall, Lillard, Kyrie. So Irving is 8.

Harden will go back to SG next seaosn. IT becoming a 2nd option knocks him back. The margin between Wall, Lillard and Kyrie is razor thin but just giving Kyrie the keys to his own car, I think he leapfrogs them. That gets him to 4.

Westbrook has a new all star teammate and (presumably) won't be as heck-bent on winning the MVP as he was last season. Paul will be on a new team and sharing the ball with Harden. If it's possible that either one of them takes even a marginal step backwards and Kyrie's effort/decision making increasing under Stevens, Kyrie can become the 3rd or even 2nd best PG in the league next season.

Homerism? Sure. But it's not that improbable, is it?

That's a wee bit improbable. Basically you just said "if everyone else falls off and Irving take the leap then he'll be a top 3 PG". That's what that boils down to. That's okay. It's to be expected from fans of the team. But looking at this realistically....

Impossible? No. But no more probable then finding out that Lebron really covered for Kyrie's deficiencies and that he's really no better than the 10th or 11th PG in the league. That's especially so when you consider his lack of durability and his truly awful defensive efforts. He could very well be nothing more than 6'3" 2 guard who is a sieve on defense who we might not resign in two years. That's a scary thought.

I think so many here are pooh-poohing the risks that this deal really entails. It's a very high-risk deal. It's a lot easier to gamble when your team sucks (the KG deal). It's quite another to completely gut an ascending, 53 win team. Ainge has pulled off two stunning - almost reckless - deals this summer: the trade down for Tatum and the Irving deal. Both have to pan out or he's screwed up this team big time. I'm not saying they won't but I'm not sure I'd have made either move (and I was one of the bigger Tatum fans prior to the draft). I'm hopeful but I can't say I'm optimistic.

I didn't say, "If everyone falls off" I said, Kyrie should be expected to take a step forward simply by being the #1 option on his team and playing for the best coach he's ever had which could be enough to leap to 4th best PG. After that, there are big changes for both Paul and Westbrook that may or may not help their games. These are things that are actually happening and will have an affect on these players' games.

Beyond that, we've seen Kyrie without Lebron. He was an all star and an all star game MVP before Lebron. Whe he played for team USA he was one of the best players on the team. So the idea that, without Lebron, Kyrie is going to regress, while possible, seems much much less likely.

You're right, we have seen Kyrie without Lebron. He's lost almost every single NBA game where that's been the case and almost always finishes with a negative plus/minus. I think that data set is equally or of greater importance than some exhibition game or a loaded Olympic team. You can cherry pick your data to reach the conclusion you want but hand-waive it away at your own peril. There is real, hard evidence out there to suggest that Kyrie could regress and it's based on his losing games in the NBA. Hopefully Brad can get more out of Irving than Cleveland ever could, because if he can't this trade is a bust.

1. What data did I cherry pick?

2. I don't think "Cleveland lost a lot of games when they were missing the player for which their entire offense is built around" means "Kyrie regressed as a player." I just don't see that conclusion. I can see it as a basis for concerns about whether or not Kyrie has a winning mentality but what you said doesn't make sense to me.

3. The all star game MVP and great play in the Olympics is meaningful to me in this way: when he is surrounded by great players, he rises to the top. It's not, necessarily, how he plays but how he plays in relation to who he is playing with and against. The fact that he can walk onto a court with the best players in the world and not just look like he belongs but actually look like the best player of them all from time to time portends something truly special to me. It might never come to be fully actualized but that he has that potential at all is getting me excited about this Celtic team.

[PickNRoll]

Kyrie's stats with and without Lebron are nearly identical.  Scores a tiny bit more without him, as expected.  Of course he lost more games without Lebron.  What does that prove?

[Phantom255x]

Kyrie's stats with and without Lebron are nearly identical.  Scores a tiny bit more without him, as expected.  Of course he lost more games without Lebron.  What does that prove?

Nothing. Just confirms people's doubts on whether he can be an alpha or not.

I do think with a better coach and supporting cast, Irving will elevate his game. Question is, can he elevate other's games and play at least average defense.

[Phantom255x]

I'd say he's Top-2 (maybe Top-3, give or take) in the East now, probably #6 overall the way he's started this season.

His defense has looked surprisingly a lot better.

Once his shot starts falling at a better rate he'll continue to rise.

[slamtheking]

I'd say he's still behind Curry and Westbrook but by the end of the season he could be on the same level as Harden (Kyrie's a better passer and his offensive skills aren't far behind Harden) and CP3 (was the benchmark but isn't quite what he used to be). 

I think he's on the same level as Wall right now.  Lillard is a slight step behind them.  IT would be behind them all (great scorer but need to see his performance post-injury.  his passing and D leave a lot to be desired).

[Phantom255x]

I'd say he's still behind Curry and Westbrook but by the end of the season he could be on the same level as Harden (Kyrie's a better passer and his offensive skills aren't far behind Harden) and CP3 (was the benchmark but isn't quite what he used to be). 

I think he's on the same level as Wall right now.  Lillard is a slight step behind them.  IT would be behind them all (great scorer but need to see his performance post-injury.  his passing and D leave a lot to be desired).

Lot depends on how IT does when he returns. Last year IT had the better season.

Kyrie vs Westbrook tonight should be lit though.