Fair to say Kyrie is an incredibly polarizing player, even amongst Duke fans.
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
He polarizes me by myself...on the one hand, he pushes the "brotherhood" more than just about everybody, and that's become a factor in Duke's continued recruiting success...so I love that...then he turns around and says something foolish and incredibly self unaware...and I cringe. I feel strongly both ways...
Pretty interesting interview with Danny Ainge that goes into more about what happened last season: https://youtu.be/4lvBxNFuJek
Money quote was him saying there were 8 or 9 guys who thought they were equal to each other and there was no hierarchy.
Don't all Dukies think like that?
I don't know about anyone else, but I wrote in my admissions essay that I was a member of the Flat Earth Society and that I wanted to major in Geogaphy.
On a separate issue, Tyler Herro (#13 pick, Heat) is scoring 15 PPG and shooting 45%/41%, while Cam Reddish (#10, Hawks) is at 7.1 PPG and 29%/23%. Curiously, some people thought that Pat Riley had wasted a pick.
Quick look at someone who doesn't get a lot of talk in this thread, but who is really having a pretty good season: Rodney Hood. The Blazers are a weird team this year, exacerbated by the Nurkic and subsequent Zack Collins injury. After having probably too many long, athletic, poor-shooting guys who played the 3 or 4, they ended up with basically none of those guys at all this year, and it had led to some weird situations, like Rodney forced into playing the 4 for long stretches (it didn't go particularly well). But now with the Melossance (Melo-aissance?) in full swing, the lineup has really settled down and they're clawing their way back towards .500 and the playoff picture. (Here's a nice article about him and how he's fitting in, via Basketball Insiders.)
Hood's been a big part of that. He's starting, and has more or less ended up surrendering all primary/secondary creator status to the Lillard/McCollum combo (though he'll still take on at least a secondary role with the bench units when one of that duo is sitting). But while he really (REALLY) struggled in that role in Cleveland with LeBron, he's done really well thus far in Portland, and he and Melo very quickly have developed a pretty solid chemistry. Hood is now shooting a pretty outrageous 53%/50%/77% slash mark for a 65% true shooting %, which is, I think, over 10% better than any full season he's had to date. And that number's actually been going up recently. It's obviously still early, but it looks like he's found a really good spot, and the Blazers really like what he's been able to bring thus far.
It's still a ways away, but his contract situation is going to be interesting. He has a $6mill player option for next year, I think, but his current numbers are worth WAY more than that. That said, he's burned a couple of contending teams in the past few years. It's clear that the cultural fit of a team is a very important factor for him. Could definitely see him taking slightly less than one might expect to stick it out with Lillard and co. Regardless, good to see him playing good ball again this year.
Any update on Zion’s return ?
RJ was perfect from the line tonight and led the starters in +/-. Unfortunately the Knicks scored 88 points and lost by 44. Ouch. College would have been so much more fun...
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
Yeah, for better or worse, I don't think there's any immediate danger of that happening. He's already flashed enough potential and charisma to be the hope of the team for the time being; people are much more likely to blame the combination of Dolan (who deserves it generally), the general management (who deserve it for assembling this absolutely absurd Knicks roster that makes literally 0 sense in any way), and poor David Fizdale (who hasn't done a particularly good job this year, but since doing a great job wouldn't have changed anything but the optics in how the Knicks lose, I feel somewhat bad for him). There isn't a single player who is playing well on the Knicks, but I don't think that the players themselves are getting all that much blame compared to the management. In some weird ways, there's actually LESS pressure on the players, since everyone here hates Dolan, Mills, and co. so much, particularly after the legit hilarious KD/Kyrie -> multiple power forward role players pivot this summer.