Kyrie Irving has the league’s best handles, if you let other NBA All-Stars tell it, but Irving’s talents as an offensive player don’t come purely from personal inspiration. Irving is a student of the game, and likes to pull things from great players of the past in order to diversify his repertoire.
Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant are among those that Irving watches to pick up on moves and find things to add to his game, according to Channing Frye. In a post for The Player’s Tribune, Frye wrote that Irving regularly watches highlights of Jordan, Kobe and others on his iPad and has a tremendous attention to detail when he’s on the court to remember tendencies and actions of other players.
“With Kyrie, it’s rare to find a guy that young who’s an old soul and a meticulous student of the game, who runs old Jordan and Kobe replays on his iPad in order to pick up some of their little moves,” Frye wrote. “Something I’ve come to really admire about Kyrie is that he’s always computing out there — he’s logging everything that happens, and since nobody can guard him, that’s scary to think about. Listen, he’s a young guy who is gonna have ups and downs, and we often forget how young he is. But my respect for him has grown astronomically this season, and no, that’s not a wordplay on the whole ‘flat earth’ thing.”
Any kid that grew up watching Jordan and Kobe has found themselves trying to emulate them on the court (or in the driveway or wherever), but few are breaking down the film to pick up little things. While I’m sure Irving has worked on Kobe fadeaways and things like that which are iconic moves of the two, he’s probably also trying to find little nuances to their games to add to his.
Whether it’s setting up a defender with a crossover to create extra space or a hesitation move here or there to keep defenders off balance, there are tons of little things that you can learn from really watching the greats beyond the things everyone already knows.
Irving is also the rare talent to be able to actually execute those things that he picks up on from watching legends. It’s one thing to notice something, but it’s another thing to be able to implement it into your arsenal successfully. Irving has that skill and when you see how complete his offensive game is, it’s not surprising to find out he’s constantly watching the best and adding things to his game.
