The Cleveland Cavaliers need Kyrie Irving
June 4, 2015
With 30 seconds remaining in a tied Game 1 of the NBA Finals, Kyrie Irving chased Steph Curry off a screen and across the top of key. Open, Curry took the ball on the wing and cut to the basket for a layup, but Irving, pursued him to the block, leapt, and just got a finger on the ball to block the shot off the backboard. Rebound Smith. 98-98, Cavaliers ball.
Mr. Fourth Quarter had the Cavaliers a possession away from a 1-0 series lead. In one of the most important defensive possessions of his NBA career, Irving had been beat, but gotten just enough of the ball on a chase down block. Through four quarters, he had become the complement to LeBron that the Cavaliers had always wanted. 23 points on 10-of-21 shooting, seven rebounds, six assists, four steals, one turnover, and two blocks; arguably one of the better all-around performances of his career. On the next possession, LeBron James missed a fadeaway three-point attempt, and Iman Shumpert missed the putback, sending the game into overtime.
Two minutes into overtime, down 102-98, Irving cut on a LeBron screen at the top of the key, defended by Klay Thompson. Irving stopped and dribbled behind the back to shake Thompson, but hit his knee and fell to the ground. Irving had been battling tendonitis in his left knee throughout the playoffs. A fractured left kneecap would sideline Irving for the remainder of the Finals and the first half of the 2015-16 season.
February 2, 2013
With 45 seconds left in the fourth quarter and a two-point lead against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Irving took the ball one-on-one against Russell Westbrook. On the last three possessions, Irving had hit two driving layups past Westbrook and Serge Ibaka and found Tristan Thompson for a jumper. He dribbled from center circle, and motioned the ball through his legs to draw just enough space, pulled up from 26-feet, swish. 115-110, Time-out Thunder.
The night previous, Irving had lost interest in a 18-point loss to the Detroit Pistons. The Cavs owned the third worst record in league. Irving had won just 28 games of 87 career games. During a postgame interview, he admitted his fault, “I let things that happened in the game bother me, and I got disinterested and let the game get away from me. I can promise that won’t ever happen again.”
Now he was making good on that promise. In just the final three minutes of regulation against the Thunder, Irving scored 13 of his 35 points (a career high up to that point) and brought a 13-34 Cavaliers team all the way back against the second best team in the NBA. A day later he was selected for his first All-Star game, as a reserve. Hello, Mr. Fourth Quarter.
Road to Recovery
Kyrie Irving’s return from his Finals injury has been difficult at times. His return date was stretched into December, leaving Cleveland without its starting point guard for much of the first part of the season. Upon his return, he struggled through a period of poor three-point shooting up to mid-January; at one point going 3-of-22 in a seven game span following the firing of head coach David Blatt. It was the second lowest three-point shooting average behind just one player, LeBron James, who shot 1-of-19. And it was a stark contrast to their projected Finals opponents. The top two over that period? Steph Curry and Klay Thompson.
Data from Basketball-Reference.com
Since then, Kyrie has shown improvement month-to-month, with a true shooting percentage of 58.6 since the beginning of February. It’s a small sign of a return to normalcy. Last season, Irving had the best shooting performance of his career — a 58.3 true-shooting percentage on a 26.2 percent usage. It was also one of the most efficient on his team, trailing only Timofey Mozgov. Irving was a second option on the team behind LeBron, but he was more than living up to his supporting role.
But this is the debate for Irving, is his ability to score in isolation worth his high usage rate? His failure to get teammates involved can be excused when his true shooting percentage scrapes 60 percent, but it doesn’t do him any favors in the locker room. And when looking at Irving’s true shooting at his level of usage this season, he finds himself receding and well short of many of the NBA’s elite talent: Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Kyle Lowry, Kawhi Leonard, James Harden, and Chris Paul just to name a few. If he could return to the 58 percent from last year, the case could be made, but as a second option on the Cavaliers, he finds himself in a difficult spot.
Data from Basketball-Reference.com
Irving’s passing holds true to the criticisms raised against him. He is currently averaging a career low in assists (4.4) behind a career average 5.5. But he is not that markedly different since playing with James, averaging 7.4 assists per 100 possession in both seasons. And certainly, his assists numbers are on the low end of average for a point guard. His 8.5 potential assists per game, creating 10.8 points, and 1.3 secondary assists, all on par with averages for most guards. It’s not that he is under-performing, it’s just that for a team in the NBA’s elite, Irving fails to fit the mold a distributing point guard.
Yet, Irving’s ability shines when looking at his driving statistics, a trait he shares with James’ former teammate, Dwyane Wade, and other players like Russell Westbrook and Demar DeRozan. This season, on nine drives per game, Irving is making 2.8 field goals, the fourth highest in the NBA. The players ahead of him are the kind of shot creators he should be compared to: DeMar DeRozan, Reggie Jackson, and Derrick Rose. He’s just ahead of Damian Lillard, Jrue Holiday, Isaiah Thomas, LeBron James, and Russell Westbrook. And among these players, he averages the lowest number of drives per game and the second highest efficiency, completing 52.1% of attempts, second only to James. Irving passes on 29.1 percent of these drives, which again is average for this class of player. The ingredients for his fourth quarter magic are all there.
It’s Not Your Fault
So here is where Kyrie Irving’s recovery meets a difficult impasse. In recent weeks, Irving has come under criticism for his failure to distribute the ball to his teammates. After a one-point victory over the Dallas Mavericks in a game without LeBron James, Chris Haynes reported many in the locker room were disappointed in Irving’s failure to register more than one assist, and were growing tired of his shoot-first tendencies. Irving had 33 points on 28 attempts and a key takeaway late in the fourth quarter that sealed the game. The report brought to light a key struggle in the Cavaliers locker room: how can Irving be the point guard of an elite team and average a career low 4.4 assists?
But can we really say that any of this is Irving’s fault? Kyrie Irving is and always has been a shoot-first guard. He was drafted for his ability to create shots off the dribble and has demonstrated this ability over and over again. His development has clearly changed since LeBron James rejoined the team in the summer of 2014, but the criticism of his assists statistics and the demands of the Cavaliers’ win-now mentality overlook the path he took to get to the Finals in 2015.
Since entering the league, Irving has had four head coaches and two general managers. Chris Grant, the GM that drafted him in 2011, was fired in 2014 and replaced by David Griffin. For his first two seasons, he was coached by Byron Scott — a coach that at the time had a sound reputation for the development of point guard Chris Paul. Since then, he’s shared a locker room with the re-hired and re-fired Mike Brown, a first-time head coach David Blatt, and now an assistant player-coach turned head coach in Tyronn Lue. It’s hard for any player to grow when an offensive system changes from season-to-season, and especially for a point guard. Irving’s quick growth and outstanding scoring ability earned him a Rookie of the Year Award and two All-Star appearances, something that should be applauded in spite of Cleveland’s shuffle at the front office.
Seeing how Kyrie failed to develop as a distributing point guard in the likes of Chris Paul or John Wall is understandable given the franchise’s failure to nurture his passing ability.The Cavaliers played bad basketball with Irving for four years. A 97-125 record was the low mark in the league in that span. They won the lottery three of four years and failed to surround him with talent (see: Anthony Bennett and Dion Waiters). Irving has shared a court and locker room drama with players such as Andrew Bynum and Jarrett Jack; his passing options were frequently players such as Alonzo Gee and Earl Clark. Not exactly in the conversation for All-NBA or even NBA journeymen.
Even in the past two seasons with a talent-filled roster, the locker room continued to be marred by controversy. It’s always a cryptic tweet, a silent shootaround, a free agency holdout, an abandoned headband, or the skipping of a pregame introduction. Plus, there are two other players in the big three that have struggled this season with Irving. For one, LeBron’s shooting this year is declining, especially in clutch situations. He’s making just 29 percent of three-point attempts on the season and he’s losing his advantage on drives a half-step at a time. James’s tweets and social media follows may be hard to interpret and they create an atmosphere that isn’t very fun to be around. Then there’s Kevin Love, who has had his role diminished. His shooting since the All Star Break has been very poor, 22 percent from behind the arc. Not great, Bob.
There is no easy solution for the Cavaliers and their time to change before the playoffs is rapidly coming to a close. As it stands, Irving and James share a bulk of the possessions and the team has an efficient 57.3 true shooting percentage when they are on the floor together, but that’s still behind James/Matthew Dellavedova and James /Love. Plus, Dellavedova is a more proven perimeter defender. Focusing on the lack of an offensive flow when Irving is running the show ignores how the Cavs have transformed Kevin Love from one of the best power forwards in the league to a very good role player. Or their issues defending the paint, Timofey Mozgov falling out of the rotation, and Tristan Thompson’s low energy in the fourth quarter.
Maybe it’s not all Irving’s fault. But it is still a problem. And one of many problems, so what now?
Well, maybe it’s time to remember the role Kyrie Irving played before LeBron James returned to Cleveland — Mr. Fourth Quarter. For every criticism waved at Irving and his selfish play, it is also fair to say he has as much untapped as anyone on the roster. If we assume that Cleveland needs to get better to realistically challenge San Antonio or Golden State, then it stands to reason that Irving’s talents are part of the solution. Yes, he should probably pass more, but the context is what matters and meaningful change isn’t going to be inspired by a cryptic tweet or gossip with a beat reporter.
Letting Kyrie be a leader on the team and finding a way to unlock his potential may be the only path forward for the Cavaliers. His driving ability is elite, and finding a way to nurture this and fit the roster around him will be key. It may be on a second unit the way the Oklahoma City Thunder used James Harden. Or it may be in giving him the ball in clutch situations where Kyrie seems to thrive, letting LeBron become the most dangerous screener in the league. Irving has not been that guy this season, but if the team wants a path back to the NBA Finals they may need to believe in Mr. Fourth Quarter again.