Nylon Calculus: Can Kyrie Irving carry the Brooklyn Nets to 50 wins?

Kyrie Irving heads into the 2020 NBA season without his costar, Kevin Durant. Can he carry Brooklyn past the successes of last year’s Boston Celtics?

As the 2019-20 NBA season inches closer, players on new teams begin to etch out their narratives. Bragging rights and history is on the line, and for no other player in the league is that sentiment more important than for new Nets guard Kyrie Irving.

Irving desperately wanted to crawl out of the LeBron James’ shadow, demanded a trade from away from the Cleveland Cavaliers only to end up on Danny Ainge’s doorstep in Boston. His arguably injury-prone body couldn’t complete a full first season for the Boston Celtics, and Kyrie’s tenure wouldn’t fully recover anyways. Another tough season and Kyrie was on the move again, this time to Brooklyn.

Whether Kyrie likes it or not, the Cavaliers and the Celtics were already places where he could lead “his own team.” LeBron James is growing older, weary, but still efficient to provide support, while Boston provided a relatively stable platform to grow and take over. So the pressure is elevated, because the Nets’ costar in Kevin Durant will be sidelined. Just because a key player can’t play, doesn’t mean that this team can afford to take a year off. Kyrie needs to perform.

From a public perspective, Brooklyn was near full unity last season. Rising stars in D’Angelo Russell and Spencer Dinwiddie held an exciting and young developing core together. Players like Jarrett Allen, Josh Harris, and Rodions Kurucs rallied and helped stabilize a team after a devastating injury to a promising talent in Caris LeVert.

The graph above shows how the Nets refused to fold in the face of difficulty. Some of the success that the Nets experienced during the winter may have been due to a slightly weaker schedule, but nonetheless credit must be given where it’s due. From Dec. 3, 2018, to Jan. 25, 2019, the Nets won 19 out of 26 games while posting great numbers.

The Brooklyn Nets were already on the rise before Kyrie Irving comes in, so the question remains: Can he elevate Brooklyn?

For starters, the Nets gain little favorability in terms of win projections with the changes they made this summer (and the projections of Durant missing the entire season). Jacob Goldstein’s model projects the Nets finishing the season at around 38 wins with a 49 percent chance of getting into the playoffs. At 538, the Nets are projected at 38 wins with a 57 percent chance of making the playoffs.

And with the potential depth-disabling news from Wilson Chandler and Rodions Kurucs, general expectations for the Nets could actually sink lower. While these two players aren’t necessarily season changers, Chandler offered Brooklyn end-of-bench depth and Kurucs took steps last season towards becoming a significant role player in seasons to come.

Regardless of what happens to Kurucs, the Nets start with a setback not just on depth but with a quick restart on team culture. This isn’t an indictment on any shortfalls that currently exist with the team or management per se. The matters surrounding Chandler and Kurucs will eventually resolve. It’s the fact that one of last year’s team leaders in D’Angelo Russell left, and that the team brought over a drama-laden leader in Kyrie to replace him. It’s also about investing in Kevin Durant, an injured superstar who won’t see the court this year. It’s also about the role players that may get downgraded in order to make other players happy. For example, will Jarrett Allen be okay giving up minutes to DeAndre Jordan, a player he’s arguably better than? When Jarrett Allen proves to be too good to keep on the bench, will Jordan step aside?

Because Kyrie Irving is the best player on this Nets team now, it’s his responsibility to patch any potential shortfalls. We’ll see that he’s the key piece to make this season work.

A good gauge of success for Irving’s Nets will be their ability to supplant the achievements of the 2017-18 Celtics. The Boston finished fourth in the Eastern Conference with 49 wins and an SRS of 3.9. The team battled through bits of controversy, mostly headlined by Kyrie himself but the Celtics managed to finagle their way into the semifinals where the team was finally undone by the Bucks.

Heading into last year, there was a boatload of expectations for the Celtics roster. Per the 2018-19 NBA Preseason Odds, the over/under for season wins was set at a staggering 59 wins. The team’s offense wasn’t elite during the regular season, but their team defense was stout. Al Horford and Marcus Smart, by most measures, anchored the team defense amongst the starters.

The lineup surrounding Kyrie Irving was solid defensively, and it clearly gave Kyrie room to relax on defense. Will he start out with as much help this next season? To judge, I turn to Jacob Goldstein’s PIPM projections for the 2019-20 season he’s made available here. Two potential Nets lineups are presented here, one with DeAndre Jordan and one with Jarrett Allen.

Yeesh. It’s easier to accept the decision to push DeAndre Jordan into the Nets’ starting rotation because someone is going to have to play some defense for this team. Sure Taurean Prince or Caris LeVert could step into a primary defender role, but there’s only so many places coach Atkinson will be able to hide Joe Harris and Kyrie on defense.

It seems like no matter how you slice it, the Brooklyn Nets are most likely not going to be a top defense in the NBA next year. Last season, the Nets were arguably on the up too, having ranked 14th in defensive efficiency despite their starting lineup volatility post-LeVert injury.

It may be easier for Kyrie to guide the Nets to a better offense than last year’s Celtics. The Nets kept up a decent pace, good for 11th in the league last year while also ranking fifth in team 3-point rate. Plugging in Kyrie should keep a steady pace while hopefully getting his new teammates open looks. Besting Boston’s 112.2 offensive efficiency from last season seems realistic, right?

From an individual shooting standpoint, here’s what the Nets are replacing D’Angelo Russell with:

The first thing that immediately jumps out from the shooting hex charts above is the overall ability of Kyrie Irving to finish anywhere on the court. He’s obviously a better finisher at the rim than Russell and tends to keep his attempts low in places on the court where he isn’t as efficient.

Seeing how big of a green light D’Angelo Russell was given to shoot above the break, I expect Kyrie to be given the same leeway as well. Perhaps another way to help visualize the differences in shot frequencies between the two guards is by radar chart. This way, we can focus on attempts rather than conflating efficiency and frequency.

The chart shows us one crucial difference between the two guards’ play styles. Kyrie driving to the hoop just a tad more allows him to actually nab about an extra trip to the rim compared to Russell. In the past two seasons, Kyrie went to the free throw line about 1.6 times more per 100 possessions than D’Angelo Russell. Per game, Kyrie is making about 3.5 free throws per game compared to Russell’s two.

Maybe that’s what management thought was the next best step for this franchise, just a bit more aggression and pizzazz. We all know that both of these players bring similar styles to the court every night but it’s Kyrie’s efficiency and decision making that gives him the edge over D’Angelo Russell.

So what does that mean for the Nets’ offense overall? As I did with predicted defensive PIPM, I present to you the predicted offensive PIPM table.

It looks to be that Kyrie is going to do the heavy lifting for the Nets, and at times it’s going to be brutal trying to figure out what will work long term. We can probably assume that the Nets will eventually shift towards using Jarrett Allen in the late fourth quarter too. Jordan had improved his free throw shooting last year, but I expect Allen to take a leap and still prove to be more valuable than just some tall, high flying defender.

If we’re to look at offensive efficiency again, the Nets will have to improve from last season’s 109.6 to 112.3 if they’re to surpass the Celtic threshold. It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s a ton of work. With Kyrie’s ability to get to the line better than Russell, efficiency above the break, and efficiency at the rim should all contribute to pushing the Nets’ offense into elite territory.

Last year, only three of the top ten teams in the NBA failed to crack 50 wins and only two of those failed to make it into the second round of the playoffs.

The Nets have decided to put all their chips on Kyrie for this season. If Kyrie can’t overcome the pitfalls of depleted roster depth, maybe the Nets decide to fold this season to maintain health into the next season. Getting to 50 wins is a supremely tall task, and the Nets aren’t expected to get there per this analysis. The only thing left to do is wait and be proven wrong.