Also, don't forget Rubio has much better players to pass to like Kevin Love and Michael Beasly. I bet Kyrie's assist totals would be better if he had team mates other than Jamison who could score.
Both are playing off the charts right now, though I think Kyrie is slightly ahead, particularly after the streak he's had in the last 5 games where's he gone over 20pts in each game.
In those last 5 games Kyrie's stats looks like this: 22.6ppg, 5.2 asts, 3.8 tos, 2.2 rebs on 55% shooting, 40% from 3 and 86% from the line, where's he averaging 4.4 FTAs/game.
Besides the A/TO ratio of 1.36, which isn't great but isn't aweful either, his numbers speak for themselves and are pretty outstanding. For the year he's now averaging almost 18ppg, 5asts, 3 rebs and 3tos.
Rubio is averaging 11pts, 8asts, 4.4 rebs and 3tos. Pretty impressive as well, and his 2.5 a/to ratio is outstanding for a rookie PG. (As a note, Rubio is also playing ~4 more minutes per game than Kyrie.)
Overall, Hollinger has Kyrie at a ridiculous 22.41 PER, good for 20th in the league and Rubio at very good 18.5, good for 65th in the league. Here's the full PER rankings list, remember its intentionally curved so that a 15 is the league average. (I know there was a post on this earlier, I was typing this post this morning but never clicked submit...sorry for some redundancy)
Hollinger certainly has Kyrie as is ROY so far (he said so in a column I linked to about a week ago), and has Rubio second. Both should make their fair share of highlight reels throughout the season, but Kyrie's scoring and his team's potential to make the playoffs may give him the lift. Its very, very early, but the Cavs are currently 7th in the east right now ahead of NYC in 8th and Boston in 9th. I expect both NYC and Boston will make a push as we get into the season and the Cavs may dropout, but I wouldn't be shocked to see them sneak in as the 8 seed.
Last edited by SilkyJ; 01-17-2012 at 03:26 PM. Reason: saw someone else commented on PER as well...
Also, don't forget Rubio has much better players to pass to like Kevin Love and Michael Beasly. I bet Kyrie's assist totals would be better if he had team mates other than Jamison who could score.
Maybe he has a couple more options, but its not like the Twolves are an offensive juggernaut. They are 5-8 and 15th in the league in PPG. Cleveland is 11th.
Yes, Love is a great option, and better than Kyrie's #1 option in Jamison, but that's about it for the Twolves. Beasley did score 19ppg last year, but he's a headcase night in and out, and isn't playing right now either. In the 7 games he did play he only averaged 12ppg despite playing 30+ minutes. After that Rubio's options fall off a cliff as he's got Luke Ridnour (when they play together) and JJ Barea, both barely averaging double digits.
So, Rubio's options are a bit better, but not a ton.
I don't think you can argue against Rubio being a better passer than Kyrie, just like you can't argue that Kyrie is a better scorer than Rubio. Rubio's passes are unbelievable - just look at the highlights at nba.com.
However, what I think will separate the two in the future is D. Currently, they are both pretty bad. But Kyrie - with better than average speed and athleticism - can be a much better defender than Rubio.
Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. - Winston Churchill
President of the "Nolan Smith Should Have His Jersey in The Rafters" Club
Conceptually, what you're saying makes sense to me, but Rubio is averaging 2 steals/game to kyrie's 0.8. Rubio has really good size for a PG and really long arms and is able to get his hands on a surprising number of passes, pick some pockets, etc. In fact, I've heard/read several NBA analyst say that Rubio's craftiness on D has been one of the biggest surprises so far.
Irving also has last year's worst team in the league firmly in the hunt for the playoff race with arguably less talent. Rubio even with Kevin Love one of the best players in the game still can't figure out how to win games.
Luol averages 1.2 steals a game. Carmelo averages 1.4. 99% sure that no one would ever say that Carmelo is a better defender than Luol. Steals in the NBA are one of the most misleading figures. Furthermore, regarding size, Rubio is 1 inch taller than Irving and weights 9 pounds more, which wouldn't make much of a difference on defense. In the NBA, the most important quality for a PG on defense is quickness due to the no-hand check rule, and I feel that Kyrie is better suited for this particular skill set.
Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. - Winston Churchill
President of the "Nolan Smith Should Have His Jersey in The Rafters" Club
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8suMzxCbHCU
Kyrie has a nice little highlight reel already considering not many games have been played yet
I see Nolan got in for 10 minutes and hit a three. He was the only bench player to have a positive +/- number. Hope he gets an opportunity for some more PT as the season wears on.
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."
I wouldn't limit steals to just being misleading in the NBA, they are one of the most misleading stats whether your in the NBA, College, or even middle shcool. The only advantage i would say the height and weight give rubio is there is often a lot of switches in the NBA to cause defensive mismatches and any height or weight could be helpful in that situation, but 1 inch and 9 lbs isn't a whole lot more to work with.
The one area where looking at steals can be useful is in evaluating a players quickness relative to other players. John Hollinger uses it as an "athletic marker" along with rebounding rate and free throw rate to show when/if a player's quickness starts to decline. He also uses this in his yearly draft rater for college prospects. The idea is that regardless of whether or not you are playing good positional defense or not, the ability to get a lot of steals indicates that you have a certain amount of quickness or a combo of quickness and length relative to the league, especially for point guards. Right now, Paul, Shumpert, Conley, Rubio, and Lowry make up the top 5 in steals in the league. All play point guard and, with the exception of Rubio, all were already known for their quickness. That Rubio is getting so many steals has got to be encouraging for the T-Wolves who must've been slightly concerned that Rubio would not be quick enough to handle the NBA upon his arrival.
Obviously, this is not a perfect science yet, as Hollinger freely admits. But it is interesting food for thought, nonetheless.
I agree that steals can certainly be misleading as to whether a person is a quality defender or not.
The other thing that has surprised me a bit with Rubio is that he is putting up pretty good rebounding numbers. He is currently averaging 4.6 per game, which is more than the 3.5 Irving is averaging. I thought Kyrie was a good rebounder last year with Duke, in the limited action we saw.
“Those two kids, they’re champions,” Krzyzewski said of his senior leaders. “They’re trying to teach the other kids how to become that, and it’s a long road to become that.”
I agree but his contract is for two years, two years where I feel he will get some great experience then who knows from there. He is the #2 PG on their depth chart but when Felton comes out of the game Crawford, who is actually listed as a SG, usually takes over the ball handling responsibilities. Nolan is a hard worker and a good kid, I truly believe he will have a very successful career.
I'd say it'll take time for Nolan to work his way into the rotation. He's basically a combo guard, and that usually translates into bench minutes.I really wish Nolan would have been drafted by a team in serious need of a pg though. Lakers come to mind, he would get plenty of pt there and not have much to worry about... just give it to Kobe
There's other players on the roster who can do what he does. Give him some time to learn the pro game; once the coach sees he won't do anything
dumb out there and can hit three pointers, he'll play more.
A couple of NBA Notes:
-From a podcast perspective, ESPN's NBA today is now 3 days a week. You get Ryan Russillo on Monday, Legler and Mike Yam on Wednesday, and Henry Abbott of TrueHoop fame on Fridays. Russillo is an acquired taste as his intentional style is arrogant/cool/impatient but he does it on purpose and knows his stuff. Yam and Legler are tough to take, clearly the studio personality paired with the ex-jock with the ex-jock being pretty cookie cutter. Abbott is great - a soft-spoken Pacific Northwest stat head with lots of opinions. Also, it's been around for 1-2 years but there is a great audio/video daily NBA pod called The Basketball Jones done out of Toronto. I had heard of it, but the Grantland Network started carrying it on Friday's and I am now hooked. Excellent NBA coverage.
-RE: JJ
He is the only guy on the Magic that I see ALWAYS looking to feed Howard if Howard is posting. Then, he always immediately runs his man out of the zone to keep his man from digging down on Dwight. It's just so smart, Howard racks up tons of fouls, which get the Magic into the bonus early and sets up the whole offense. Aside from building himself and NBA body, this is another reason why Stan Van loves him so much.
RE: Steve Blake
On the Basketball Jones, they were talking about the "Toughest Guys in the NBA". They broke the title into a few buckets - and one was, literally, guys who other guys are scared of because they can really fight. Apparently, Steve Blake is one of those people. He trains in MMA and is ready to throw fists at any time. Classic! Personally, my vote is Nate Robinson. Much like little man Calvin Murphy before him, he fears no one and has a very short fuse.