Accountability

[jv001]

Strongly agree. However, the Nets will probably end up being mostly Irving’s fault. I doubt Kyrie will ever accept being a team’s third best option.

I don't watch many NBA games but I would think Kyrie might be the 2nd best option. Hardin seems like a ball stopper.

GoDuke!

[Jeffrey]

I don't watch many NBA games but I would think Kyrie might be the 2nd best option. Hardin seems like a ball stopper.

GoDuke!

Harden was the 2018 NBA MVP and the Nets just traded their future for him. I seriously doubt Kyrie will ever be an NBA MVP and he is teammates with two MVPs.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

Harden was the 2018 NBA MVP and the Nets just traded their future for him. I seriously doubt Kyrie will ever be an NBA MVP and he is teammates with two MVPs.

Whoa there. I agree Kyrie's current trajectory isn't good, but he absolutely would be in a group of 15ish players who I would not be surprised to see get an MVP.

[Jeffrey]

Whoa there. I agree Kyrie's current trajectory isn't good, but he absolutely would be in a group of 15ish players who I would not be surprised to see get an MVP.

Have pie, will wager!

Hard to be the NBA MVP when you’re not even the best player on your team. I think Durant is a better player.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

Have pie, will wager!

Hard to be NBA MVP when you’re not even the best player on your team. I think Durant is a better player.

I'm not suggesting he is likely to win this year. But I would find it unsurprising for him to win in the next five. His stats were great so far this season.

[Jeffrey]

I'm not suggesting he is likely to win this year. But I would find it unsurprising for him to win in the next five. His stats were great so far this season.

Have pie, will wager! Entire career!

I suspect Kyrie’s stats will diminish, with Harden’s introduction, and Kyrie will not respond well. At some point, Kyrie’s behavior will probably have serious consequences.

[Music man55]

Talking about the 2011 team, I don’t think it mattered much what would have happened. Yes, Williams had a career night for Arizona and all that, but I remember we nearly lost to a Michigan team on OT the weekend before, a Michigan team that we were easily more talented than. It could be that the 2011 team peaked just a little too soon.

[rsvman]

Talking about the 2011 team, I don’t think it mattered much what would have happened. Yes, Williams had a career night for Arizona and all that, but I remember we nearly lost to a Michigan team on OT the weekend before, a Michigan team that we were easily more talented than. It could be that the 2011 team peaked just a little too soon.

That 2011 team was firing on all cylinders when it went through the ACC tournament and won. The first game in the NCAA tournament was against Hampton, if I remember correctly. They offered little to no resistance, but also little chance of really learning how to reintegrate Kyrie.

Yes, Kyrie was a transcendent player; perhaps a once-in-a-career player for a coach to have on his team. But to put him on the floor meant taking somebody else off the floor; somebody who had spent the entire season building up cohesion with his teammates.

Would we have lost to Arizona with Kyrie on the bench? Who knows? Maybe. Perhaps even probably. There is no way to go back in time and find out. But to this day I still think there is something to the team identity and comfort that the team had built playing without him that might have been a little lost when he came back.

Our best chance to win the title that year was for Kyrie to stay healthy and play the entire season; no question about that. And if I were coaching, I would undoubtedly have put him back into the lineup as soon as he was ready to play, even if that was the first game of the NCAA tournament, just like Coach K did. It's all water under the bridge now, anyway.

[English]

I'm not suggesting he is likely to win this year. But I would find it unsurprising for him to win in the next five. His stats were great so far this season.

You wouldn't be surprised if Kyrie was the NBA MVP in the next five years? That's bananas. He's the third best player on his team now, and he's shown if he's the best player on a team, that team won't sniff the postseason, which is basically a prereq for winning the MVP. All of that ignores his, um, tricky team chemistry history and the scuttlebutt of why he's been MIA for the Nets and where exactly his career is going.

If he wins the MVP in his lifetime, you're sure to be the only person who's not surprised.

[simplyluvin]

Hard to know. He scored 28 against Arizona fairly efficiently and did not start in any game in the post season Duke was playing well until Williams went Bootsy on Duke. Nolan had a bad game but I don’t blame that on Kyrie. Duke got hit in the mouth in the second half and never recovered.

The turning point of the AZ game was when Kyle went for the ball on the floor and clearly hurt himself. We were never the same. Yes, Williams played the game of his life as well (and also never was the same). My point is that the chemistry we had before Kylie went down was off the charts, and I believe Coach himself said that team would have gone undefeated had he stayed healthy. When Kylie finally got back, it was too late to mesh with how the team had played to that point without him. And we probably would not have had POY Nolan.

I’ll make another unprovable point...I think we had a similar phenomenon two years ago with Zions injury. When he came back, it was too late for the team to get back to running on all cylinders, although he probably singlehandedly won the game against the cheats in the ACCT. we will never know