Last season most basketball fans had a belief that John Wall
was ready to take a step forward in his second season. It was believed that he had relied mostly on
his world class speed to be effective and with one full season under his belt
it was time to build on his game. Many
were disappointed that this didn't happen.
By any other standards, a young point guard averaging 16.3 PPG and 8.0 APGwould
be considered a success. For Wall
though, that was hardly an improvement from his 16.4 PPG and 8.3 APG in his
rookie season. Also, his shooting
percentage didn't improve much (40% in rookie year, 42% in second) and his team
had to rattle off a six game winning streak to close the season with 20 wins
(46 losses).
This
situation reminds me of Kyrie Irving and it caused me to stop and wonder for a
moment. Are our expectations simply too
high for Kyrie after one season? SLAMMagazine already has him rated as the 17th best player in the league and I've
read and heard people claiming he could finish the season a top 10 player in
this league (!?). That's all for a
player who has yet to make an All-Star team.
We are all assuming Kyrie is going to take another large step forward,
but as we saw with John Wall, development isn't always linear.
Another
example of a young guard that seemed to take the league by storm and then
failed to live up to our expectations of improvement is Tyreke Evans. Tyreke was the first rookie since Lebron
James to average 20, 5, and 5. Today,
that seems like a long time ago because in his second season Tyreke was hobbled
by injuries and regressed to average 17.8 PPG on 41% shooting. The league had learned how to guard Tyreke: keep
him away from the basket at all cost. Now
,entering his fourth season, he has yet to make the necessary adjustments to
his game.
One
could also make an argument that other star guards Rondo, Westbrook, and Rose
all made their big improvements in their third seasons, not in their
second. So there is a track record here
of second year guards not making the improvements that we all expect them to
make. We also have to take into account
the surrounding cast of characters. For
John Wall, that team was lacking so much direction that almost the entire
roster has been turned over around Wall in only one year. That has to be a concern for Kyrie going into
this season. A healthy Varejao will help,
but there's not much else to speak of on this roster besides the
youngsters. Waiters, Zeller, and
Thompson are still very early in their development.
There
are two significant differences between Irving's rookie season and that of the
other guards that failed to live up to expectations. The first is Byron Scott's plan to limit his
minutes even after it was apparent he was the best player on this team. Scott had the luxury of a veteran guard in
Ramon Sessions for much of last season and eased Kyrie in minutes-wise. Kyrie averaged only 30 mpg last year while
Tyreke and Wall both averaged 37mpg in their rookie campaigns. Kyrie will be on the floor more this season
and that bump in minutes could get him to 20 PPG and 6-7 APG alone.
The
other glaring difference between Kyrie and the Wall and Tyreke is his shooting
numbers. Kyrie shot 47% from the field
while Tyreke and Wall settled just over 40% and Kyrie even shot practically 40%
from the 3-point line. Not only compared
to Tyreke and Wall, but also Rondo, Rose, and Westbrook, Kyrie is clearly a
much better shooter than them all at that stage in their careers. We expected Tyreke and Wall to improve their
shooting, but when it didn't happen for either, they seemed to still be the
same player they were as rookies. This
could work for or against Kyrie. Kyrie
had the 5th highest True Shooting % in the league among PG's who played 30
minutes or more. It's his shooting ability that really differentiates him from
many others. It's hard to imagine a scenario where Kyrie
shoots the ball better this year than he did last year. On the other hand, it's what makes him very
different from many of the young guards that have come into the league
lately.
In
fact, it's really difficult to find a player similar to Kyrie. When it comes to pure numbers though, the one
player that I find most similar to Kyrie is Tony Parker. In their rookie seasons both players averaged
18 PPG and 5 APG. Surprisingly enough,
Parker out shot Kyrie from the field (52%-47%) and matched Kyrie at 40% from 3
(it's worth noting that Kyrie took many more 3's than Parker in his rookie
year). Again, Kyrie's outside shooting
ability separates him from Parker but both players are great finishers at the
hoop and elite paint scorers for their position. Parker in his second season? He made almost inconsequential improvements
in most raw numbers and saw his PER fall just a bit.
So,
given all of that, are expectations too high?
Obviously, it will be about more than the numbers. If Cleveland is winning games than that will
help. His defense and passing are areas where
there is room for improvement, and maintaining his shooting numbers is invaluable. Continuing to close games in the habitual way
he did last season will help as well.
Finish and win games, improve his passing and defense, and shoot the
ball at an elite level? That's all? No pressure Kyrie.
No comments:
Post a Comment