How good is the Kyrie Irving / Anthony Davis DUO?

[mdonnelly1989]

How good are they and based on their surrounding roster where do you expect them to finish

[mdonnelly1989]

.

[RCM88x]

If they make the playoffs it'll be a tough ask getting out of the first round. I could see them giving a team like Houston or Memphis some fits though.

[TheGOATRises007]

1st round exit I think.

[Tracymcgoaty]

I think they're a really good team and if healthy will for surprise many.

Feels like this duo is getting severly underrated on here.

Ky isn't the main guy AD is.

Ky thrives as the second fiddle who can take over in the 4Q.

they lack playmaking

Their defense just skyrocketed.

West isn't as good as people think. Outside of OKC being the favorites everyone can be beat. Even OKC who Dallas are 3-1 against without Luka.

[zimpy27]

Yeah i think they will be a tough out. I would expect them to be as good as Cavs if they make an addition like Ingram.

I'd say WCF loss

[One_and_Done]

They'll be worse than their talent if they play AD at the 4.

[trickshot]

They are basically a top 5 defense plus Kyrie. Do the math.

[RCM88x]

They are basically a top 5 defense plus Kyrie. Do the math.

Kyrie has never really been an effective engine of an offense though. Great as a supporting player definitely, but not as the primary guy. I think that assuming this team will be above average offensively is a bit dangerous.

[tsherkin]

They are basically a top 5 defense plus Kyrie. Do the math.

Kyrie has never really been an effective engine of an offense though. Great as a supporting player definitely, but not as the primary guy. I think that assuming this team will be above average offensively is a bit dangerous.

Assuming health, they should be all right.

As far as him being an engine, what's the sample?

The first 3 years of his career on a pretty rough Cleveland team? His time in Boston, where he played 60 and 67 games? They were the 10th-ranked offense in the league that second year. His time in Brooklyn? 20 games, then the best offense in the league (obviously because he was playing with Harden and Durant, but still), then 29 games.

You can say he has health issues, but he's participated in good offenses when he has had reasonable teams. He isn't a floor-raiser on the level of someone like Lebron or Harden or what have you, but that's not really salient.

If Kyrie and AD are both healthy with the peripheral players on the Mavs, they should be just fine offensively. They've got good 3pt shooting even if they haven't been using it much and they've got roll/lob threats if they spam PnR. Kyrie's a better scorer than he was in his first three seasons and AD himself is a pretty good offensive player as well.

Hard to envision this team as a below-average offense. Wouldn't be surprising if they weren't magically top-5, sure, but they should be all right if they're healthy. The talent is there.

[Djoker]

They'll finish as a low seed and lose in the 1st round. I don't see why they would be any better defensively than they were last PS (-7.4 rDRtg) and they are clearly worse offensively now with Luka's playmaking gone.

[RCM88x]

They are basically a top 5 defense plus Kyrie. Do the math.

Kyrie has never really been an effective engine of an offense though. Great as a supporting player definitely, but not as the primary guy. I think that assuming this team will be above average offensively is a bit dangerous.

Assuming health, they should be all right.

As far as him being an engine, what's the sample?

The first 3 years of his career on a pretty rough Cleveland team? His time in Boston, where he played 60 and 67 games? They were the 10th-ranked offense in the league that second year. His time in Brooklyn? 20 games, then the best offense in the league (obviously because he was playing with Harden and Durant, but still), then 29 games.

You can say he has health issues, but he's participated in good offenses when he has had reasonable teams. He isn't a floor-raiser on the level of someone like Lebron or Harden or what have you, but that's not really salient.

If Kyrie and AD are both healthy with the peripheral players on the Mavs, they should be just fine offensively. They've got good 3pt shooting even if they haven't been using it much and they've got roll/lob threats if they spam PnR. Kyrie's a better scorer than he was in his first three seasons and AD himself is a pretty good offensive player as well.

Hard to envision this team as a below-average offense. Wouldn't be surprising if they weren't magically top-5, sure, but they should be all right if they're healthy. The talent is there.

Yeah there's not really a great sample here, especially recently but I feel like there is more pointing to him not being an elite engine than being one.

I don't really feel like Kyrie is a guy who is good at taking advantage of spacing in the sense of distributing to shooters. Having multiple PnR bigs will definitely be a positive though and probably the core of the offense. But I worry about how things will look with AD at the 4 (if thats indeed how they go), he's probably less effective defensively in that spot too at this point.

My guess is they're probably in the 13-18th range, maybe like +0.7 to -0.5, something like that.

[trickshot]

They'll finish as a low seed and lose in the 1st round. I don't see why they would be any better defensively than they were last PS (-7.4 rDRtg) and they are clearly worse offensively now with Luka's playmaking gone.

They can be a better defense and still have a worse floor or ceiling overall. It doesn't have to be one or the other. AD and Max Christie are defensively better. Think their defense raises their floor relative to the rest of the league but obviously not relative to what they could have outright achieved with Luka or their playoff ceiling. It's a similar opposite reason for why the Lakers may get worse in the short run.

[tsherkin]

Yeah there's not really a great sample here, especially recently but I feel like there is more pointing to him not being an elite engine than being one.

I don't think there's really a meaningful sample which describes anything except that he isn't a superstar-level floor-raiser. But this isn't an 07 Cavs situation. He's got Anthony Davis and some shooters, remember.

I don't really feel like Kyrie is a guy who is good at taking advantage of spacing in the sense of distributing to shooters. Having multiple PnR bigs will definitely be a positive though and probably the core of the offense. But I worry about how things will look with AD at the 4 (if thats indeed how they go), he's probably less effective defensively in that spot too at this point.

My guess is they're probably in the 13-18th range, maybe like +0.7 to -0.5, something like that.

We'll see. I think Kyrie doesn't need to be too brilliant to push this team to a reasonable level of offensive quality. Like, it's basically a turn-key offensive environment. Anthony Davis, if healthy, is basically a 25/12/3.5 player who produces at 60-62% TS. He replaces most of Luka's scoring volume (and at better efficiency), so we'll see what happens with the initiation/playmaking vacuum which Luka's departure leaves.

But yeah, honestly, with the pieces they have, they should be fine. I doubt they drop off tooo much on O, and their D will definitely improve considerably, which should more than make up for any dip on the other end.

[sp6r=underrated]

They are basically a top 5 defense plus Kyrie. Do the math.

Kyrie has never really been an effective engine of an offense though. Great as a supporting player definitely, but not as the primary guy. I think that assuming this team will be above average offensively is a bit dangerous.

And just to add I'm very nervous for Dallas how Kyrie will handle the increase in prominence. Historically he's handled that terribly.

[tsherkin]

And just to add I'm very nervous for Dallas how Kyrie will handle the increase in prominence. Historically he's handled that terribly.

We'll see how that goes for him from an emotional standpoint, but we don't really have a meaningful sample of him in a focal role from a basketball standpoint.

[Tracymcgoaty]

They'll be worse than their talent if they play AD at the 4.

AD at the 4 brought lakers a championship.

They can always put him at the 5 if the game is tight at the 4Q

[RCM88x]

They'll be worse than their talent if they play AD at the 4.

AD at the 4 brought lakers a championship.

They can always put him at the 5 if the game is tight at the 4Q

5 years ago when he was shooting 38% from 3 on 3 attempts per game and 55% from the midrange in the postseason.

If he starts shooting like that again then yeah its possible.

[Tracymcgoaty]

They'll be worse than their talent if they play AD at the 4.

AD at the 4 brought lakers a championship.

They can always put him at the 5 if the game is tight at the 4Q

5 years ago when he was shooting 38% from 3 on 3 attempts per game and 55% from the midrange in the postseason.

If he starts shooting like that again then yeah its possible.

dont know if that'll happen but if he can get it to maybe 35% from three it'll be good enough.

AD will only wear himself out playing center. No reason to put him there when you've got 2 really good rim protectors.

They'll be incredibly hard to score against. But they need a playmaking guard.

[One_and_Done]

They'll be worse than their talent if they play AD at the 4.

AD at the 4 brought lakers a championship.

They can always put him at the 5 if the game is tight at the 4Q

Back then teams played a little bigger. AD also hit 3s in 2020. The moment they played small ball Houston that playoffs they realised they had to move AD to the 5 to win the series. Other match ups like Jokic and Bam let them go bigger.