The Cavaliers managed to win two games in the NBA Finals against a nearly full-strengh Golden State Warriors team, despite being ravaged with injuries. That was impressive stuff (and enough to gain LeBron some Finals MVP votes, even though he was on the losing team), and it immediately raised the question of what a healthy match-up between the two teams would have looked like.
Kyrie Irving, who fractured his patella late in the Cavs’ loss in Game 1 of the Finals, appeared on The Big Podcast with Shaquille O’Neal on Monday, and in discussing Kevin Love’s return to Cleveland, he weighed on that particular “What if?”
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“I feel like we definitely would have won an NBA Championship if we had everyone healthy,” Irving said to Shaq. “But almost doesn’t count.”
When asked about what he did to help convince Love to stay, Kyrie called himself a “straight-shooter,” which, sure. He could just tell Kevin Love, “You see any other NBA Finalists around here?” and that would be a pretty convincing case.
(Via ProBasketballTalk)