everdiso wrote:nah, this is a totally misleading argument which makes Kyrie and Kawhi sound like similar calibre players with similar question marks when they clearly are not.
Kawhi most certainly proved he can carry at to a championship - he was the best player by a longshot on that spurs team.
Okay, so how many Championships have they won without Duncan since Kawhi became "the guy"?
as for Kyrie, he won a championship beside a guy who put up a .274ws48 and 13.1bpm that playoffs. it didn't matter who was on his team. that is ridiculous.
No, because they played GSW the year before without him and the Cavs lost. Kyrie was a major component to that Championship. Could he have been replaced by another guard like Lillard or Thompson or Steph? Sure, probably. But you could say the same thing about Kawhi being replaced by Durant or LeBron. If you switched out Kawhi on the Championship Spurs team with Durant, they'd win the Chip. They'd probably still win if you switched Kawhi then out with Giannis now.
Like I said, Kyrie was in an ideal situation next to LeBron, but he's still an elite scorer. Anyone who denies Kyrie's an elite scorer is just delusional. He put up 58 against Kawhi and the Spurs, he was outright dominate in the 7 game series against the Warriors, and strong the next year in their Finals. That's more than enough proof that he's an elite offensive player.
Why casual Raptors fans feel the need to be delusional about it is really weird to me. And quite frankly, it's embarrassing when they post on the General NBA board or the Celtics board and say stupid **** to fan bases where the average fan knows a lot more about basketball.
but bringing up Detroit's championship 15yrs ago is kind of interesting, but what you saw was still just an incredible unlikely run by a team playing well above it's head:
They weren't playing over their head, that Pistons team was always a strong playoff team. They were always hovering in the ECF, as a Top 2-3 in the East, casual fans just didn't follow the NBA closely to remember that so they act like they were a 1 season fairy tale. What finally put them over the top was Rasheed and Larry Brown (though Carlise in his own right is becoming a great coach and it's questionable whether they really needed to replace him). But they were always a top team in the East.
Casual fans act like that was a 1 season outlier, when they went to the Finals a year after (lost to the Spurs in 7) and were a contender for half a decade.
The Pistons are a much better comparison than GSW. GSW has Steph, who was a 2x unanimous MVP (he's better than any current Raptor and anyone who doesn't think so is again, embarassing the fan base), Klay and Draymond. They won 73 games together, do you know how crazy dominate they were? I really don't think you do if you're comparing this Raptors team to Steph/Klay's Warriors. I'm not even going to entertain this discussion any further, people were comparing them to the Bulls. If you were to compare this Raptors team to that GSW team on the General Board, you'd get laughed at.
The Pistons are a much better comparison, because their most reliable player all those years was a well-rounded PG who didn't became an All-star and find his place in the league until he landed in Detroit. They were always a strong team and got to the ECF.
But they hit a wall, fired their coach (Carlise), then acquired an elite 2-way talent in Rasheed, and that put them over the top (a player not as great as Duncan, Shaq, or Kobe but in a 7 game series could be). They were also really deep. Sounds much like the Raptors situation. But comparing us to Klay/Steph's Warriors? GTFO.
Lowry's got to be our Billups, Nick Nurse our Larry Brown, and Kawhi our Sheed.
