Dukies in the NBA - 2017-18 Season

[Duke79UNLV77]

I like Kyrie, flat-earthing notwithstanding, but I think the real leader of the Celtics is Al Horford.

It's almost like the guy could score 27 a game on excellent shooting and low turnovers in the NBA Finals, while having one of the top defensive ratings in the Finals (when he needed to play defense, unlike in the regular season for Cleveland) totally outplay the league MVP, and hit the biggest shot in years in the NBA, and people from his own school would still say, meh, he's only decent because of LeBron.

Or, Lowry could gag in postseason every year, including getting dominated by Kyrie, and people would still say, gosh, if only Kyrie could be half as good as Lowry.

Or, he could take the reigns of a team that doubters here thought would be lucky to finish .500 after Hayward went down and lead it to 14 straight wins, including over one of the best teams ever, and people would say, yeah, he's decent, but mainly because of the coach and the forward who was already on the team last year.

Don't get me wrong, beyond LeBron being the best player in the world, I think Kyrie has much better teammates this year and a much better coach. Outside of LeBron and Kyrie, Cleveland would have been a high lottery team in recent years. But, the guy is a top 10 player in the league and has been for a while. I think other NBA players and executives know it.

[JasonEvans]

Kyrie with 30 tonight (on 12 shots, nice efficiency) as the streak goes to 15.

[Duke79UNLV77]

Rodney Hood is now coming off the bench, but playing very well and actually improving his numbers. He also topped 30 tonight. With his stomach issues at the start of games, maybe a 6th man of the year type role suits him well.

[Furniture]

[DukieInBrasil]

Rodney Hood is now coming off the bench, but playing very well and actually improving his numbers. He also topped 30 tonight. With his stomach issues at the start of games, maybe a 6th man of the year type role suits him well.

I don't know what numbers you're looking at but his stats are down across the board. He's an integral part of the Celtics being so frickin' good, but he hasn't improved his numbers.

[ice-9]

He’s referring to Hood not Kyrie!

As for the previous convo, I’ve already said my piece, which is to cut a Duke basketball guy some slack on a Duke basketball forum. But if you don’t that’s fine as well, not much I can do about it.

[WillJ]

It's almost like the guy could score 27 a game on excellent shooting and low turnovers in the NBA Finals, while having one of the top defensive ratings in the Finals (when he needed to play defense, unlike in the regular season for Cleveland) totally outplay the league MVP, and hit the biggest shot in years in the NBA, and people from his own school would still say, meh, he's only decent because of LeBron.

I should have been clear that I think Kyrie is awesome. But I also think that Al Horford is an outstanding player and, as well, one of the very best team leaders in the NBA.

[Troublemaker]

I don't know what numbers you're looking at but his stats are down across the board. He's an integral part of the Celtics being so frickin' good, but he hasn't improved his numbers.

Many of his Kyrie's rate stats are up and all of his important analytics stats are up, like PER, RPM, BPM, Win Shares.

And there's room to grow, because his shooting will continue to regress back towards his career 38% from three.

[DukieInBrasil]

He’s referring to Hood not Kyrie!

As for the previous convo, I’ve already said my piece, which is to cut a Duke basketball guy some slack on a Duke basketball forum. But if you don’t that’s fine as well, not much I can do about it.

Derp, major brain fart on that one. He's had a couple of 30+ pt games already this year, so that's good. His numbers from last year are not a great comparison b.c he played injured and missed a lot of the season, but his numbers this year are very comparable to his 2nd NBA season. His ppg is up although his minutes are down. His shooting %s are marginally higher in each area, although 3FG is up by .056. His other stats are down though. I don't know how to calculate it but it looks like his usage rate must be higher than previously.

Additionally, i noticed that Tyus Jones now has 15 assists and 1 turnover in the last 5 games. His shooting and scoring has been down compared to last year, but he hasn't lost any of his handling-distribution prowess.

[mkirsh]

Right. There is no reason I should care more about Irving as a person than anyone else. There are lots of Duke's general alumni I love and lots of Duke's alumni who I never care to see/hear from again. Same would probably be true of the athletics (if I knew them). Just because he chose Duke doesn't mean I have to care any more about him as a person, just as I don't have to care less about someone as a person if they went to UNC. One of the best people I've met in the athlete world is Eric Montross. Really good guy, very caring person. I would venture that I like him more than I would like plenty of former Duke players.

Irving is an amazing talent on the basketball court, and has made great strides in his career to improve (especially in recent years). But what we know of Irving off the court is a little more scattershot. He seems to be a bit weird, with seemingly a pretty clear desire to present himself as "woke" and intellectual (seriously, go look at his interviews and see how often he mentions his intellect or how "awake" he is), and frequently stubs his toes trying to do that.

We don't all have to be blindly supportive of everything about every Duke player. I'm happy that Irving has really developed as a player over the years, while I think there are things I don't care for about what I see of his personality. I don't see anything wrong with that.

What has it been, like 7 years? Yet the toe puns (intentional or not) still sting

[CDu]

What has it been, like 7 years? Yet the toe puns (intentional or not) still sting

Uggh, totally not intentional.

[Duke79UNLV77]

Kyrie with 55 points on his last 22 shot attempts.

[chrishoke]

Kyrie ended w/ 47 on 16-22 shooting and led a comeback ot win at the Mavs. WOW.

[kAzE]

So, I caved in and got LeaguePass, just in time to watch the entire Celtics/Mavs game. Great investment. Kyrie went off and had 47 points. Celtics win in OT!

[duke4ever19]

Kyrie put his team on his back to get the Celtics to 16 straight wins. Tatum with 15 points, 9 boards.

That was what a star looks like taking over and willing his team to victory. Great stuff.

[moonpie23]

sooooooo...we going with "good move to the celts, kyrie", or we sticking with "we'll have to wait and see"...???

[Duke95]

I've just calmed down after that superb Celtics victory after the Duke win.

I had the League Pass on the away feed, and even the announcers were feeling as though Kyrie was going to do something special to close out the game. It was like an eerie feeling of confidence.

[duke4ever19]

"Irving is the first Celtics player to score at least 45 points on 70 percent shooting since Larry Bird on November 10, 1989"

I'd say that's pretty good company.

And Tatum . . . a rookie being counted on like this and delivering the goods? Sure, he's probably not going to be rookie of the year (It's Ben Simmons' award to lose), but he is impressive.

[arnie]

sooooooo...we going with "good move to the celts, kyrie", or we sticking with "we'll have to wait and see"...???

I don’t follow the NBA as closely as many on this board, but was startled to see well intentioned Board predictions of .500 or sub .500 for the Celtics after Hayward went down. Comments from those prognosticators now?

[Troublemaker]

Many of his Kyrie's rate stats are up and all of his important analytics stats are up, like PER, RPM, BPM, Win Shares.

And there's room to grow, because his shooting will continue to regress back towards his career 38% from three.

Regression can come fast when dealing with small samples. After a couple of great games, Kyrie's now shooting 37.5% from three and 47% overall.

Kyrie's true shooting percentage is currently higher than last season's. So much for Lebron blah blah blah blah. I counter with Brad Stevens blah blah blah blah.