Healthy IT > Kyrie
How many posts have you stated this in over the last 3 weeks? It's pretty extreme. And yet Thomas is not healthy.
Let's clarify this: assuming reasonable health for both, how many NBA teams wouldn't trade IT for Irving straight up on this date / time, IYO? Please explain you're answer if the answer is more than 1-3 teams.
Jeez that's a big call. All offseason I had been defending IT and saying that his level of play in 16-17 was equal to Kyrie. But to say that IT, when health, is superior to Kyrie is pretty crazy.
IT is not healthy, so saying "oh but when he's healthy" is useless, because he might never be the same in terms of health that he was with us. Everyone gets that you don't like the trade (hard to avoid you saying something about it), but that's a bit of a silly thing to say.
This hypothetical presumes a healthy IT.
As for "silly" and "hysterical"...
IT advantages: PPG, APG, 3PT, FTM, eFG%, TS%, ORtg, PER, WS, DWS, OWS, BPM, VORP, All-NBA votes, MVP votes, most defensive statistics
Kyrie advantages: FGA, MPG, RPG, SPG, 3PT%, trade demands
Between the two, IT was clearly better last year. That's why when NBA voters looked at the two, IT was All-NBA and 5th in MVP voting.
For somebody who usually makes pretty well thought out arguments, I struggle to identify how you manage to:
1. Completely ignore the Isaiah Thomas was the primary scorer, primary playmaker, primary ball handler and lone All-Star in Boston...while Kyrie was the secondary scorer, secondary playmaker, secondary ball handler, and one of three All-Stars in Cleveland. I'm not sure how you can possibly be obviously to (and completely ignore) this fact, and how it impacts individual statistics for a player.
Every single star player who has ever joined up with Lebron James (Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Kevin Love) has seen their scoring and assist numbers drop significantly as a result. In addition to that, multiple players (Chris Bosh and Kevin Love, at the very least) have publically made statements about how much they had to sacrifice their own games in order to cater to Lebron.
It's blatantly obvious that sharing the court with Lebron is going to lead to a major drop off in statistical production for any NBA player, and it's just as blatantly obvious that you cannot directly compare Kyrie's box score output to Isaiah's without factoring this in. PPG and APG, for example, are clearly going to be handicapped by the fact that Kyrie wasn't the primary scorer or playmaker in Cleveland (while IT was in Boston).
2. Base all of your comparisons on a single season, rather then looking at the entire body of work over these two player's careers. If you look at their career stats so far (6 seasons in both cases) it goes like this:
* PPG: Kyrie
* APG: Kyrie
* RPG: Kyrie
* SPG: Kyrie
* BLK: Kyrie
* FG%: Kyrie
* 3PT%: Kyrie
* FT%: Tie
* TOV: IT
* PF: Tie
* PER: Tie
* TS% IT
* FTR: IT
* REB%: Kyrie
* AST%: Tie
* TOV%: Tie
* WS/48: IT
* OBPM: IT
* DBPM: Kyrie
* BPM: Kyrie
* VORP: Kyrie
That's a total of 21 categories with the results as follows:
* IT Wins: 5
* Kyrie Wins: 11
* Ties: 5
But you choose to ignore this and instead focus on a single season - I assume you do this because it, conveniently, supports your emotional bias.
Clearly over the duration of their careers Kyrie has had been a better player - this is despite the fact that Kyrie (having just turned 25) hasn't even reached his prime yet, while IT (at 28) is smack-bang in the middle of his prime.
I also love how you list "trade demands" as a disadvantage. Do you not recall how unsettled IT was when he was playing third fiddle PG in Phoenix? From memory he got pretty close to requesting a trade himself (he may have even done so, I can't recall). He also expressed his discontent on multiple occasion when he first came to Boston and Brad had him playing in the 6th man role behind Marcus Smart. I love IT, but you can't exactly paint the picture of him being that ultimate guy who just happily accepts any situation he's thrown into. Every player with strive to be put in a situation where they can excel and be the best they can be, and every player will push for that if they have the opportunity to.
While I get a bit of a chuckle out of the condescension, a couple of points:
1. Shouldn't a player's efficiency numbers go up playing with Lebron? And down as a result of playing with no All-stars? Yet, IT had a much higher eFG% and TS%;
2. Kyrie took more shots than IT;
3. IT faced more double and triple teams than Kyrie;
4. Kyrie led the Cavs in shots and usage;
5. IT had a better ORtg than Kyrie;
6. IT literally had the ball in his hands 18 seconds more per game than Kyrie;
7. Why factor in stats from six years ago, when their situations were completely different?
1. Not necessarily.
2. He took 0.3 more field goal attempts per game. Zero Point Three. That is statistically insignificant.
3. That's an interesting opinion. Where is your evidence?
4. Kyrie's usage rate was 30.8% and Lebron's was 30.0%, Kevin Love's was 26.4% - you really love making a big deal over insignificant numbers, don't you? By comparison the top 3 among Boston starters were Boston were Isaiah (34%), Bradley (21.9% and Horford (19.7%). The spread is not even remotely close. It's blatantly obvious that Boston everything revolved around Thomas (who had the ball FAR more often then any other Celtic), while in Cleveland Kyrie, Lebron and K-Love got almost equal distribution of the offense.
5. Offensive Rating is influenced by a number of factors (including line-ups and team environment). It is not a statistic that can be banked on to accurately measure an individual player's impact.
6. See #4
7. I'm factoring in stats from a player's entire career. This is more relevant then factoring in stats from a single season due to larger sample size. This is basic logic. A player who has shown consistent excellence at every level (from college, to USA, to every season of their NBA career) shows a better indication of superiority then a player who had one or two big seasons, after spending 4-5 years struggling to fit in anywhere. There is a reason for this - IT's size is a unique attribute that makes him very difficult to build a team around - and as such he needs to be within very specific circumstances in order to be able to excel. Kyrie doesn't have this limitation, so he's much easier to integrate into a team and much easier to build an effective roster around. IF you happen to get IT on a team where he has all the right pieces around him, then he CAN be just as dominant as Kyrie. The vast majority of the time you'll struggle to do that, and so the vast majority of the time Kyrie will be more effective.
For Isaiah Thomas to excel, there are two things that you need to have in place.
Firstly, you need to hide him defensively. To do that you need enough help defence on the perimeter to ensure that you can continuously cover for him while his size is being constantly exploited on defence (as it was by Beal and Wall in the Washington series). If you don't have a sufficient perimeter defence, then in these scenarios teams will prey on Thomas every possession no matter who you match him on to, and you will give up so many points that his scoring output will become irrelevant.
Secondly, you need to create enough space on offense such that teams can't trap him, and so he has the space to be able to get in to the paint where he is most effective. When there is insufficient court spacing you get what happened during the 15/16 playoffs - where Atlanta constantly doubled/trapped Isaiah on every possession (as they had no fear of our outside shooters with Smart and an injured Crowder out there) - and Thomas as a result was almost completely ineffective.
Last season Boston was in a very unique position because we had Avery Bradley and Jae Crowder, two excellent-to-elite perimeter defenders who also both shot upwards of 37% from three. With Bradley's quickness (which allowed him to cover quick guards) and Crowder's size/strength (which allowed him to cover big guards) Boston had a very unique combination of perimeter defenders that allowed them to cover for any defensive mismatch Thomas may face - while
at the same time being able to stretch the floor enough on offense to also create the spacing Thomas needed to get in to the paint.
This was the absolute perfect scenario for Isaiah, a picture perfect fit, which is why it's no surprise he was able to excel the way he did. The instant we traded Avery Bradley away, we instantly lost that "special environment". Neither Crowder nor Hayward has the quickness defensively to be able to switch onto guys like John Wall, Kemba Walker or Kyrie Irving once they exploit Isaiah on defence. Offensively they'd still be ok with Hayward and Crowder spacing the floor, but defensively the drop off would have been significant. Kyrie, despite his defensive deficiencies, is nowhere near as easy to exploit. It's not as easy as just backup him up and using size to shoot over him - there aren't really any elite PG's in the NBA who have a significant size advantage over the 6'3" Kyrie. So even without the injury, Kyrie is the better/easier player to built a roster around.
Then you have to consider that factor in that IT's contract is expiring and you know he will demand a max contract. This is a dangerous move to give a $30m x 4 deal to a 29 year PG (which he would be when the new contract starts) who is coming off a season ending hip injury. It's an EVEN MORE dangerous move when that is a guy who (giving up a 4-5 inches to his opponent 90% of the time) is
completely dependant on his explosive quickness in order to create the space he needs to get his offense. With that contract at the very least, Thomas would going in to the last year of his $30M deal at the age of 33. Even if Thomas does recover perfectly from injury (which he may well not), there is no way he going to have the same explosiveness that he has now when he is 32-33 years oid, and so he's likely to have far more difficulty getting space to get that shot off, and as such is likely to regress VERY rapidly on offense. And I shudder to think of how his defence will be affected once that quickness is gone - ouch.
By comparison Kyrie relies more on footwork and elite handles to create space, rather then outright athleticism. The average size of an NBA PG is 6'2", so more often then not Kyrie (at 6' 3 1/2") has the size advantage over his man, so he doesn't doesn't need to elevate as much (and hence doesn't need to create as much space) in order to get his shot off. Often enough he can just shoot straight over his guy. This means he also doesn't need to depend so much on his legs in order to get his shot off. This all leads to the end conclusion that his game should age much better then IT's will - even after he loses his athleticism, he'll still have the size and handles to get his shot off.
For example Jamaal Crawford has some similarities to Kyrie -not a crazy athlete, but a big guard with elite handles and a good jumper. Last season (at 36 years old) he was still averaging 12 PPG and shooting 36% from three. Game ages easier when you have size, handles and a jumper.
On the other hand we all saw how much Iverson's game (the closest comparison to IT) dropped off with age...it wasn't pretty.
So even without factoring in the injury, you look at Kyrie as a guy who can probably play at an all-star level until he is maybe 33 or 34 years old, versus Thomas who can probably play at an All-Star level until he is maybe 30-31. That gives Kyrie about a 9 year window, and Thomas about a 3 year window. It's easy to determine which is the best solution for the long term...
So all of the above taken in to consideration, the decision was clear, even without the injury. Adding in the injury just made it so, so much clearer.
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Topic: If IT4 Was 100% Healthy, Would DA Have Kept Him For LONG Haul? (Read 14420 times)