iggymcfrack wrote:Tai wrote:iggymcfrack wrote:
The problem for Boston is that in the playoffs, teams like Toronto and Golden State will be attacking Kyrie every single play. So his weaknesses get magnified and you’re counting on him to make up for it with late game scoring even though he’s going to already be dog tired from all the extra effort on D, and he pretty much never makes it through a season healthy anyway.
Meanwhile if you could replace him with someone who’s a little less skilled but a better defender, you’ll still have plenty of scoring with Hayward and Tatum, but you won’t have that weak link in the defense to attack any more. There’s guys that make way less than Kyrie’s current salary who would have more value in Boston’s particular situation so it doesn’t make sense to give him $170MM unless you’re just looking to lock him up and then trade him somewhere else. It has nothing to do with the offense flowing better without him holding the ball, and everything to do with his strengths being redundant while his weaknesses are a glaring problem for Boston.
I find it ironic that you mention Golden State, yet part of the reason they are who they are is because they have 3 of the best shooters in the game and are a very good defensive team themselves. Yet your conclusion to counter that for the Celtics is a less offensive player on a team that already has good defensive players; how does that make any sense? On a team that was 1st in defense but 18th in offense, and scored 79 in a winnable Game 7, Kyrie is now redundant? And the thing is, the Celtics roughly ended up with the team you think they should've had the year before they got Kyrie; IT got hurt and a "less skilled but a better defender" in Smart was starting. And what happened? They got demolished once they faced the Cavs partly thanks to Kyrie, ironically enough. Why? Because eventually the lack of offense caught up to them.
So I'm not sure what you have against Kyrie (and to be blunt, please save me any bull **** that you don't), but Kyrie makes the Celtics a better team, if only because he fits what they need to be a championship caliber team.
He was much less redundant last year when Jayson Tatum was a rookie and Gordon Hayward missed the entire year with injury. And yet, even on that team, they performed better than expected once he went down. Boston was considered the 3rd best team in the East when Kyrie was healthy and yet without him, they nearly swept the Sixers and came one game away from making the Finals. Even when his offense was filling a need, the Celtics didn’t miss him one bit.
Now, they no longer need his offense. Hayward’s an elite scorer and Tatum started really stepping into his own as a fantastic isolation scorer as he went deeper into the playoffs. If Kyrie was unnecessary before, now he might be an actual impediment to winning basketball.
Also it’s funny you bring up Golden State like they’re a counterexample. They had two great scorers in Klay and Steph and then when they added KD, their offense didn’t get any better because they didn’t need him. The third scorer was redundant just like Kyrie is in Boston. They’re also a team that’s been really successful by having no weak links to attack on defense. The best the Rockets could do was try to go after Curry and that didn’t get it done because he’s a much better defender than Kyrie. They don’t let any defensive liabilities on the fooor and that’s what makes them an unstoppable team defense.
And what I have against Kyrie is how overrated he is. Just tonight I saw another post ranking him in the Top 10. Bill Simmons has to bring up him being “Top 9” every time he brings him up. It’s annoying because it’s so wrongheaded. I actually had the same thing happen to me with Kobe in the late 2000s. I’d been somewhat of a fan of his for quite a few years, but then when he won those rings with Pau and people tried to say he was better than LeBron, it was just so obviously wrong that I couldn’t help myself from arguing with them and the more I argued the more I just wanted him to fail spectacularly to shut up all the idiots trying to put him in the GOAT conversation. Right now, KD, Kyrie, and Derozan are the 3 most overrated players in the NBA and I don’t feel particularly positive toward any of them.
I'm not sure what to tell you on the Warriors..
1)If you're gonna do a take on the Rockets/Warriors, you may as well note that series turned when CP3 got hurt, so one of the Rockets' top scorer (and yes, top facilitator) went down. Of course that was going to affect them. So if you want to assume the Warriors having a better defender in Curry than Kyrie (tho I'm sure Curry is better period so why just mention the defense?), it's worth mentioning that part of it was that the Rockets when healthy had the offensive power to counter, and lost a big part of it when CP3 went down.
Yet you want to claim Kyrie is redundant to a team like the Celtics with not nearly as much offensive power as Rockets or Warriors because Bill Simmons overrates him? It says a lot to me you haven't even mentioned who'd you want in his place, but I guess you've more or less explained it; it's more your bias on Kyrie being justified than anything else. And I've asked this before; why do people use Bill Simmons as an excuse to hate on the Celtics? It's not even like he's that universally loved in Boston anymore, as far as I've heard.
2) Because teams are so focused on Curry, it's Durant who got to go 1 on 1 instead of some other inferior player, and now you have people dare wonder if he's better than Lebron ( of course he's not). But you think he's somehow redundant? You not liking Durant is fine, but calling him redundant is a stretch as is and I'm not sold that the Warriors win these past seasons without him.
3) Well I agree that Lebron > Kobe, tho I don't think that's as nearly a hot take anymore; topics have been done just on Lebron and have shown the board mostly favors him over Kobe.
