Kyrie Irving Is Finally Free To Be The Killer On The Court He Was Always Born To Be

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PHILADELPHIA — For most of the first five years of his career, Kyrie Irving was an enigmatic player. Sure, his brilliant ball handling, hilarious Uncle Drew ad campaign and fast-selling sneakers made him a star on the streets and on social media, but his lack of defense, inefficient shooting and disappointing assist totals called into question his real value among more astute observers and stat heads. Our last point guard ranking had no idea what to do with him, and ultimately left him out of the top 10, for example.

But with one instantly legendary shot, everything changed.

Combined with Kyrie playing the best defense of his career during those finals (against a weakened Steph Curry), that shot changed the narrative. Kyrie was, inarguably, a guy who could win an NBA title as the second-best player on a team. The irony of it all is that the shot was classic bad Kyrie — contested, without ball movement, and fading away, as inefficient as it gets.

The playoffs have always proven that sometimes you just need a guy to do something individually spectacular, and just as LeBron had his chasedown block, Kyrie capped off the series with a moment that was thoroughly him.

Had the debate over Kyrie’s relative greatness not largely ended with that series, it might have with the way he’s started this season. We are hesitant to say that the Finals win gave Kyrie confidence, considering he’s never lacked it before, but he’s more comfortable and efficient than ever before, having bumped up his field goal attempts and efficiency. Heck, he’s shooting nearly 50 percent from the floor, an unthinkable mark for him a couple of years ago. He’s taking 6.5 three-point attempts per game, and making 43 percent of them.

If he can sustain that, then the only person in the NBA who can match his combination of shooting and ballhandling is Curry himself.

Against the 76ers on Sunday, all of Kyrie’s spectacular skills were on display as he led the team with 39 points on better than 50 percent shooting from the floor. In a game that was competitive up until the final minutes, with the crowd louder and fuller than it has been in Philly for years, Irving silenced them again and again with long-range daggers and acrobatic layups.

Much like the Golden State Warriors last season, winning a title has served to make the Cavs more relaxed and consistently dominant during the regular season. Gone are the constant worries of locker room backbiting, LeBron’s outsized influence, or the fear that the complementary parts, while talented, wouldn’t fit together. Kevin Love is back to averaging 20-10, sure, but with LeBron collapsing the defense time after time, Kyrie has become both a lethal spot-up shooter and perhaps the foremost attacker of closeouts in the NBA. In other words, he’s now the perfect weapon to complement LeBron.

Better yet, he’s just the perfect weapon, period.

It’s tough to remember at this point, since Kyrie has gone from young hotness to frustrating second banana to full-fledged superstar, but he’s still only 24 years old. Though LeBron may feel immortal and invincible now, the time will come when his physical abilities will diminish, and Kyrie will become the best player on the Cavaliers. His incredible scoring ability means that when LeBron moves on, he may need another primary distributor to work with, but A) that’s years off, and B) it’s no great hardship.

Passing isn’t going to be Kyrie’s main concern if he’s to be a team’s number one player, anyway — it’s defense that’s been his biggest bugaboo. And it’s Irving’s defense that’s been perhaps the most encouraging so far this season. His defensive rating held steady at a shade over 104 his first two years with LeBron, but he’s shaved a full two points off of it so far this season. Whereas his rating was the worst among all regulars on the team last season, he’s now comfortably in line with backcourt mates JR Smith and Richard Jefferson, and even quite a bit better than Iman Shumpert.

We’re at the witching hour of the season when people stop screaming “SAMPLE SIZE” at every opportunity despite the samples remaining pretty small, but anyone watching Kyrie and the Cavs this season can tell the difference. The offense doesn’t operate in fits and starts like it used to, and much of that can be chalked up to Kyrie being more judicious with when to pound the ball, and quicker with his shot. We all knew he needed to be more efficient to truly take the next step in his game, but now that it’s happened, it’s more beautiful than we could have imagined.

Maybe it’s because he vindicated and validated himself on the biggest stage, maybe it’s the marginal improvements of a player approaching his physical peak, but the important thing is this: He’s still Kyrie.

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