Trade Irving for the sake of the team

[gouki88]

What did I tell you guys....

2nd 3rd passing

Hayward playing amazing... so is the team

i love irving, but there is definitely more ball movement without  him

Entirely opinion based take

While I disagree with triboy’s desire to trade Kyrie, there’s some basic evidence for his point about ball movement / less iso ball.

Kyrie has missed four games:

Tonight: team’s 1st highest assist total
Against MIN: team’s 3rd highest assist total
Against Utah: team’s 5th highest assist total
Against NOP: team’s 23rd highest assist total

It’s probably not a coincidence that 3 of our top 5 games in terms of assists came with Kyrie out. He plays more iso than most of our other guys.

That doesn’t mean we’re better without him, though.

As Nick said, over 85% of our games with 25+ assists have had Kyrie playing. I'm not going to say we're a better ball-moving team because we're generating lots of assists against sub-500 teams. I still believe the ball moves considerably better with him in over TRoz, both because of the passing itself and because Kyrie is so much more of threat on and off the ball

[SHAQATTACK]

Its like this .....when your high scoring  star ...Kyrie is missing .....the Celtics have to play harder and more together as a team ,to make up,for Kyrie being absent .....like Roy says , that does not mean the Celtics are better without him  .....JUST different , a nice adjustment by the team to make up for his stats

in the the playoffs .....its alot of ISO ....and we need Irving's  star game ....END oF STORY

[nickagneta]

https://stats.nba.com/teams/passing/?sort=AST_TO_PASS_PCT&dir=1&Season=2018-19&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&DateFrom=12%2F01%2F2018&DateTo=01%2F04%2F2019

Here is some stats on team passing since 12/1/2018. Kyrie missed 3 of the 15 games yet the stats show the Celtics being one of the best passing teams in the league.

Get rid of the date filter and look at the yearly stats. Celtics still one of the better passing teams in the league even though they struggled with ball movement to start the year.

Kyrie is not a ball movement problem.

[10610786d]

https://stats.nba.com/teams/passing/?sort=AST_TO_PASS_PCT&dir=1&Season=2018-19&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&DateFrom=12%2F01%2F2018&DateTo=01%2F04%2F2019

Here is some stats on team passing since 12/1/2018. Kyrie missed 3 of the 15 games yet the stats show the Celtics being one of the best passing teams in the league.

Get rid of the date filter and look at the yearly stats. Celtics still one of the better passing teams in the league even though they struggled with ball movement to start the year.

Kyrie is not a ball movement problem.

Maybe a shot distribution problem? Chemistry problem?

I don't even want to trade Kyrie or anything like that, but with the way we looked I can't help but armchair coach and hope for discussion here.

Edit: by Chemistry problem I don't mean that he's bad for the team, because I love the way he played defense. But I guess the various players' styles just haven't clicked yet.

[gouki88]

https://stats.nba.com/teams/passing/?sort=AST_TO_PASS_PCT&dir=1&Season=2018-19&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&DateFrom=12%2F01%2F2018&DateTo=01%2F04%2F2019

Here is some stats on team passing since 12/1/2018. Kyrie missed 3 of the 15 games yet the stats show the Celtics being one of the best passing teams in the league.

Get rid of the date filter and look at the yearly stats. Celtics still one of the better passing teams in the league even though they struggled with ball movement to start the year.

Kyrie is not a ball movement problem.

Maybe a shot distribution problem? Chemistry problem?

I don't even want to trade Kyrie or anything like that, but with the way we looked I can't help but armchair coach here.

I think it's probably, more than anything, a matter of time. Behind Kyrie we have an almost nonexistent hierarchy in the offence, and so I think people are confused for the time being. I think eventually it'll sort itself out, with KI, Tatum and Hayward as our key offensive guys, but not for a bit.

I also think our guys feel more pressure to score and be assertive without the offensive security blanket that is Kyrie

[Moranis]

Boston is now 2-1 (66.7%) without Irving this year and is 20-14 (58.8%) with him.  Last year Boston was 41-19 (68.3%) with Irving and 14-8 (63.6%) without him, but that obviously includes the unsustainable 15-2 start (Irving missed a win in that streak).  If you take out the 16-2 start, then Boston was 26-17 (60.4%) with Irving and 13-8 (61.9%) without him.   Boston went 11-8 (57.9%) in the playoffs last year all without Irving and was obviously 1 game away from the NBA Finals. 
 
There is starting to be enough of a sample size to show that while Boston might not be better without Irving, they aren't appreciably worse either, such that trading Irving and getting assets might actually be the sound move, especially when you consider you won't have to pay him for the next 5 years to the tune of 188 million dollars. 

And none of that takes into account what happened in Cleveland where the Cavs basically replaced Irving with an injured partial season of IT4, George Hill, or quite frankly no one at all and yet won 1 less game than the prior season and were still in the NBA Finals despite losing Irving.  All of that is with the Cavs being a complete train wreck with a near complete roster upheaval in the off season and in the middle of the season.  Irving clearly didn't affect the actual wins and losses all that much on the Cavs. 

Put all that together and you can paint a pretty easy picture that while Irving is a masterful scorer he doesn't actually do much for the wins and losses of any team he plays on.  That maybe isn't a guy you should pay 38ish million dollars a year for the next 5 years, especially when you factor in how many games he actually misses.  He has already ended multiple seasons on the IR, played 75 games just once (and only has 2 other seasons over 70), has had multiple knee surgeries, and is generally very prone to missing games.

Well now 3-1 (75%) this year.  Every game he misses that Boston wins furthers the point.

[Roy H.]

There’s lots to unpack in this thread, and a lot of it is arguing past one another.

I think all of the below can be true:

1. The Celtics are a good passing team with Kyrie;

2. The Celtics share the ball more without Kyrie;

3. Scoring is less focused on one player without Kyrie;

4. The offense is better with Kyrie.

I think that there’s evidence for each of those points.

[gouki88]

There’s lots to unpack in this thread, and a lot of it is arguing past one another.

I think all of the below can be true:

1. The Celtics are a good passing team with Kyrie;

2. The Celtics share the ball more without Kyrie;

3. Scoring is less focused on one player without Kyrie;

4. The offense is better with Kyrie.

I think that there’s evidence for each of those points.

Agreed. More than anything, trading Kyrie for Jamal Murray and a couple of weak picks would be very very bad for our team

[nickagneta]

There’s lots to unpack in this thread, and a lot of it is arguing past one another.

I think all of the below can be true:

1. The Celtics are a good passing team with Kyrie;

2. The Celtics share the ball more without Kyrie;

3. Scoring is less focused on one player without Kyrie;

4. The offense is better with Kyrie.

I think that there’s evidence for each of those points.

I agree with all this except number 2. 4 games is simply not enough evidence to prove #2, especially with the recent amount of better ball movement we have had for over a month that have produced games with as much ball movement as tonight. It's not like the Cs haven't had exceptional ball movement games regularly for the last six weeks where Kyrie only missed three of the last 20 games.

[Ogaju]

there is better ball movement without Kyrie...

[tarheelsxxiii]

I posted this in another thread and think it's meaningful.

For the 2017-2018 season, Boston's most used lineup was excellent:
Brown-Tatum-Horford-Baynes-KYRIE (354 minutes played). 

The Celtics had only two better lineups all season, actually; at least with sample sizes reasonable enough to interpret:

Brown-Tatum-Horford-Baynes-ROZIER (115 mins)

Brown-Tatum-Horford-Baynes-SMART (43 mins)

That means the Celtics' best lineups consisted of their starting 5 after swapping out Kyrie for Rozier or Smart.  Pretty powerful data.



Were the Celtics very good with Kyrie? Yes. He's a net negative defender, but very good scorer that offsets his defense.  But that the Celtics are better with two younger, borderline-starting PGs speaks volumes about his value as a teammate.

Add the fact that Kyrie (injury-prone, very reliant on quickness) will be due somewhere ~$40 million in his mid 30s, and there is plenty of cause for concern. 

https://hardwoodhoudini.com/2018/11/12/boston-celtics-holiday-gift-guide/

[Chris22]

I like this team so much better without Kyrie.

If only we could trade him and Tatum and some picks for Davis.

[gouki88]

I like this team so much better without Kyrie.

If only we could trade him and Tatum and some picks for Davis.

What a monstrous overpay that would be

[nickagneta]

I posted this in another thread and think it's meaningful.

For the 2017-2018 season, Boston's most used lineup was excellent:
Brown-Tatum-Horford-Baynes-KYRIE (354 minutes played). 

The Celtics had only two better lineups all season, actually; at least with sample sizes reasonable enough to interpret:

Brown-Tatum-Horford-Baynes-ROZIER (115 mins)

Brown-Tatum-Horford-Baynes-SMART (43 mins)

That means the Celtics' best lineups consisted of their starting 5 after swapping out Kyrie for Rozier or Smart.  Pretty powerful data.



Were the Celtics very good with Kyrie? Yes. He's a net negative defender, but very good scorer that offsets his defense.  But that the Celtics are better with two younger, borderline-starting PGs speaks volumes about his value as a teammate.

Add the fact that Kyrie (injury-prone, very reliant on quickness) will be due somewhere ~$40 million in his mid 30s, and there is plenty of cause for concern. 

https://hardwoodhoudini.com/2018/11/12/boston-celtics-holiday-gift-guide/

It doesn't really contribute much since it's 2017-18 stats. For instance, this year, when 5 man combos have played at least 20 minutes together, Kyrie is in 12 of the top 16 best net rated 5 man combos this year.

[10610786d]

The fact that this team plays well without Kyrie could be looked at as a "good problem".

With the way this thread is going you'd think Kyrie is Rondo. Thing is, if you take Kyrie off the ball, he'd still be a force to be reckoned.

Perhaps the end-game is we have less Kyrie iso's and more Kyrie pindowns.

Let's not forget, the team was a net negative much of the season with all Gordon Hayward lineups (if I recall correctly).