NyCeEvO wrote:flintsky21 wrote:Kyrie is so criminally underrated and underappreciated. Everyone's still attributing it to the "Lebron factor," implying that any other decent PG in the league would score 38 and 40 points in back to back finals games simply coz he got Lebron as teammate. He utterly outplayed Curry, outscoring him 40 to 14, and people even barely talk about it. If it was the other way around there probably would be at least 5 threads about it. You'd think that after last year's finals, where Kyrie stood toe-to-toe against the 2x MVP, that people would start giving Irving the recognition he deserves, but the truth is by the time the next season starts, there will yet again be another Kyrie vs Lowry debate instead of comparing him against the likes of Curry, Westbrook or Wall.
The problem is that Kyrie is caught between two sides.
The one side is that he simply doesn't possess the gravity that Curry brings to a team on a nightly basis. We all know that from the moment that he crosses half court, he is a threat to bomb from deep. It's the reason why CLE traps him so high, hedges so hard on PnR, and plays physical with him. They are trying to do everything that they can to inhibit the ease with which he can make 3s at an extremely high volume. Kyrie is good but he doesn't have the type of draw nor the ability to open the floor for others that Steph does.
The other side is actually the more compelling one. There is a large contingent of LBJ supporters that need to prop up the narrative that LeBron has the midas touch; any garbage he plays with turns into gold. And by box score measurements and a surface analysis of the game, it would appear to be true.
However, most people honestly do not understand that it isn't easy being LeBron's teammate, especially one as talented as Kyrie.
There is a sacrifice to one's personal game that you have to make in order to play with him. Yes, you do get the benefit of playing in a near elite offensive system, but it surely isn't a democratic one.
LBJ plays free safety on defense which helps him reach rebounding totals very quickly. He brings the ball up, initiates the offense, beats his man off the dribble, and gives you the ball so that you can shoot a 3. (This obviously racks up the assists.) The only time another player runs sets is when LBJ doesn't feel like doing it. Because of this, he will always have tremendous box score numbers. Simply by the nature of running with LBJ, it would be much harder for anyone to put up great number consistently considering that plays aren't designed to be run through them often.
Bosh and Wade underwent the same treatment over time. Bosh warned Love ahead of time, yet Love didn't understand it until he experienced himself.
On one hand, you need to attribute it to LBJ's greatness that he is almost always a mismatch when he has the ball in his hands, and thus you can regularly expect the defense to collapse when he inevitably beats his man off the dribble or in PnR.
At the same time, LeBron's teammates are all marginalized in the sense that by letting LBJ do everything, his teammates can't do all that they may want to do. For some like JR, Shumpert, and Korver, it's great because he enables you to just focus on your strengths. But got guys like Wade, Bosh, Love, and Kyrie, it's very tough because you know that you can do so much more, but you're sort of being forced to primarily become just a shooter. They're not really allowed to showcase their strengths as much as they'd like because it doesn't go with the LBJ system. Thus, they're often critiqued for not flourishing in a role that they were never really designed to play in.
Players who are or could be developed into greater talents are by design reduced to shooters. And shooters know that completely wide open in-game shots are actually not easy to hit, since they usually aren't rhythm shots.
The hardest part of the play, which is making the shot, falls on his teammates. LBJ has some of the best spot up shooters surrounding him but it goes to show that it's very hard to always show up on demand like that, especially when you're not allowed to get into your own rhythm.
LBJ kills two birds with one stone with the system that his teams run. He generates all of the action (hence why we don't often see too many hockey assists from them) and can put up fantastic numbers, but his teammates have to be elite marksmen all of the time which is impossible for any one to do. By nature of LBJ's greatness but also by design of the system, his better teammates (who aren't 3&D players by nature) are essentially setup to always come up short.
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