yoyoboy wrote:TravisScott55 wrote:Wow you Jokic lovers are outrageous.
I think it's crazier that Kyrie has as many votes as Oladipo, Draymond, Lillard, and Gobert combined when all four posted higher RPM values just last season than Kyrie ever has in his career. The fact that the only actual argument I've seen for Kyrie in this thread has been by Duke yet Kyrie might win the poll tells me this is starting to turn into a bit of a popularity contest. And Kyrie is no doubt popular finishing 5th in All Star voting in 2017 and 5th in 2018, 4th in jersey sales this past season, and 2nd in signature shoe sales only behind LeBron.
But the top tier impact in comparison to the wide perception of him has never really been there in his career, and when you refrain from using arguments like "clutchness," "Mamba mentality," "the shot in Game 7," and "he gets buckets," it becomes very difficult to construct an argument that he's the 12th best player in the league, but I'm more than open to hearing evidence- based arguments for why he is. I just haven't seen convincing arguments here. As an offensive player, he's fantastic due to his elite efficiency, top tier isolation creation, and low turnover rate, but he lacks the off ball play and great playmaking that separates the top 5 offensive players from the next 10 or so. And then when you factor in that he's a clear negative defender by any measure (and I don't think even Kyrie's biggest supporters would argue against this), it's hard to see how he's the 12th best guy here
I think the evidence is clear that Kyrie, who made the shot in game 7, has an aura of clutchness around him and the same Mamba mentality as Kobe; he gets buckets, and everyone knows the team with the highest points wins the game.
Joking aside, I think what is missing from your offensive analysis, metric wise, is the way in which players can score. And I think the way in which Kyrie scores, his ability as an isolation scorer, his handles, make him uniquely valuable as an offensive player vs. e.g., Harden (especially how good Kyrie is from 10-16 feet, by comparison). You refer to e.g., Towns and Giannis as well, and again, I think that once you get to the upper echelon of scoring we need to think in a far more granular fashion about how guys score than composite advanced metrics.