Kyrie is not a player who makes a team better

[PatrickLencioni]

Here's the thing.  If Kyrie Irving just left the team, even with no new players to replace him, the team would be better.  That's not to say that the Celtics shouldn't get something for him.  They should.  But if he left, they would be the same team as last year with the addition of Hayward.  I know.  You already know that.  But the thing is, this is a team game and having a guy who wants to be "the guy" doesn't make a team better.  It makes players like Tatum and Brown and Rozier and Smart worse. 

I was booed off this board earlier this year for saying they should trade for Whiteside and other assets at the Heat for Irving, and for the record, I said they should trade him for AD too.  Whatever they do, they need to get him off the team.  And they could certainly use a big, defensive, rebounding C.  There is plenty of talent on the team.  And it's clear that the coaching staff is stifled having to deal with Kyrie.

Hey, he's probably a nice guy.  But he's not a team guy. 

[slamtheking]

yeah, no.  as has been witnessed repeatedly this year, when Kyrie is out or out of the game, the team's offense all too frequently sputters.  Kyrie is the one player we have that can manufacture points out of nothing to break a team's run

[BitterJim]

Would you care to provide any actual reasoning or evidence for this? Or for "it's clear that the coaching staff is stifled having to deal with Kyrie"?

[Green-18]

If this team is better without Kyrie then the rest of the players deserves their share of criticism for an inability to play with urgency on a consistent basis.  It's a two-way street.  Kyrie has made a conscious effort to adapt to Brad's system. 

That being said, everything changes come playoff time.  Playoff Kyrie will be a real thing, and I expect the rest of the team to elevate their game.

[Roy H.]

Stats don’t bear this observation out.

And, Kyrie for Whiteside would be a disaster.

[ETNCeltics]

Nonsense. Right now he's shooting 50/40/87. Averaging 24 a game on only 18 shots, and a career high right now in assists and steals.

He's playing out of his mind. If the team plays better without him, that's a rest of the team issue, not a Kyrie issue.

Rozier is just an average player, and Smart isn't even an average player offensively. We're far less dangerous when Kyrie isn't on the floor.

I think what we're seeing is when Kyrie's out, some of the other guys know they can't stand back and watch him play. There's 2 much of that, and it's not because Kyrie "isn't a distributor", we've seen this year he's doing everything. We've still got 2 months for this thing to come together and these guys to be ready for the playoffs.

[C3LTSF4N]

Booo

[RJ87]

If you were a GM and you traded Kyrie Irving + assets to the Heat for Hassan Whiteside, you'd be fired. And deservedly so.

Not responding to the rest of this unless you provide stats or anything remotely conclusive to back up your claims.

[johnnygreen]

We have either hit an all-time low in the trade Kyrie idea department, or the OP is straight up trolling us. I don't even think the commissioner would approve of this trade, as he would first demand an investigation of blackmailing by the Miami organization.

[PhoSita]

Disagree.  He doesn't really change the players around him but he absolutely raises the ceiling for the team that has him.

Without Kyrie the Celts don't have anybody who can take over crunch time of a tight game.

[CelticsElite]

I wouldn't even sign Whiteside as a free agent if we had the cap space

[Kevins Gamble]

From a team that failed to make the Finals last year only because in game seven, NO ONE on the team could suddenly hit a shot for four quarters (9-17, 2-14, 5-18, 5-14, 1-10, etc)....it's a strange request to get rid of the only guy on the team that can always reliably score points.

But maybe that's just me...

[NKY fan]

I wonder what would people be thinking if we didn’t collapse in the second half of game seven last year vs Cleveland

[liam]

Whiteside has a negative net value and The Heat would trade him away for cap space....

[PatrickLencioni]

I've read various statistical analyses of this situation, and it is not at all clear that the team is better, as a team, with Kyrie.  But statistics don't tell the whole picture.  Anyone who has ever been on a team, in sports or any other endeavor, knows that the impact on the attitude and the impact on the other players is what matters.  And to understand that, you can't simply look at isolated minutes when a guy is on the bench. 

With Kyrie, everyone knows that the game is about him.  He's made that pretty clear, over the years and even in comments this year.  That means people like Tatum and Brown and Rozier and Smart and Hayward aren't going to get a chance to play team basketball.  And if also means that Brad Stephens isn't being leveraged because he's a TEAM coach.  This isn't that difficult to understand.

I completely agree that a GM who trades Irving is probably going to get roasted.  But that doesn't mean it isn't the right thing to do.  The Patriots would move him so fast it would be crazy.  He's just not about the team first.  Too many isolations.  Too little defense.  Too little ball movement.  It's clear that others on the team are frustrated with him, and to make matters worse, he criticizes THEM. 

Now, I didn't say they should trade him for Whiteside straight up.  I think there are other players in the league that would be even better.  AD of course.  The point is that addition by subtraction sometimes works.  And of course Ainge has to say that it would be crazy to trade Irving.  First, Irving would freak out if he heard Ainge criticize him publicly.  Second, it would decrease his trade value. 

What I'm saying is that the Celtics are a better team, a more effective team over the long term, without a player who doesn't play intense defense, who doesn't get others involved as much as he should, and who wants to be a superstar more than he wants to be on a super team.  Teams win.  Teams led by players who work and play harder than anyone on the court, and who demand the same kind of intensity and effort from others.  Actions speak louder than words.