I'm A Sucker For A Good Mixtape And This Kyrie Irving One Certainly Does The Trick

Let me save the commenters the trouble. When the Celtics first traded for Kyrie it’s safe to say I hated it. It was an emotional time, and I can honestly say that after watching Kyrie play 60 games as a Celtic that he showed me things I did not think he could do. He defended at a level that was much better than I expected from him based on his time in CLE, and he proved to me that he was more than just a fancy dribbler. His vision and passing also stood out, even if he only averaged 5.1 assists. It was the way he passed the ball and how he saw the floor that impressed me more than anything. So yeah, I was wrong for how I acted when he first arrived last August, but that’s the beauty of basketball, you can be pleasantly surprised. Now the one thing I knew coming in was that Kyrie was going to be a ridiculous offensive player. So much sauce it would make your head spin. In that regard Kyrie lived up to the hype and then some. Part of my responsibility to you, a loyal reader, is that whenever there is some quality Celtics porn put out there on the internet for us all to pleasure ourselves to, I must make sure it’s widely seen. Can’t run the risk that there could be a stoolie out there that missed it. That’s exactly what we have here with the official Kyrie mixtape the NBA put out yesterday. Go ahead, handle your business and I’ll catch you on the other side.

I dunno about any of you, but I’m feeling a little sleepy. Now that I think about it, I don’t think I ever did a postmortem on Kyrie’s first year, so here it goes. Did you know last season was the second highest scoring average of Kyrie’s career? Or that his 49/40% splits was the most efficient season he’s ever had. Fuckin Brad Stevens man, the guy just knows how to get the most out of point guards. Not to mention his 2.8 3PM were the most Kyrie’s ever made and his 118 Ortg was the best of his career as well. But again, the thing that we all should care most about is the commitment to defense. Last year was the second time Kyrie has had a Drtg of 106 (career low), and his +12 net rating was you guessed it, the best he’s ever had. So as good as Kyrie may have been over the course of his previous 6 seasons, we’ve basically never seen a Kyrie like what we got last year. What I also liked was that his usage rate was the highest ever (31%) and his TOV% basically stayed the same as it was the year before at 10.4% (second lowest of his career). You keep looking and you’ll see he had the highest PER of his career as well as the best true shooting percentage while also attempting the most threes compared to any previous season. And yes, the games played and injuries are always going to be a concern. You may as well get used to losing sleep over that for basically his entire Celtics tenure and do like I do and try and just block it out of your brain.

For this upcoming season what I’m most excited to see is now that everyone will be healthy how much Brad will play Kyrie off the ball. We saw it at times last year, but I think people don’t realize with guys like Hayward in the lineup, they’ll be able to have him run the offense and Kyrie is going to be swimming in wide open catch and shoot opportunities. Let me tell you why that’s a good thing. Kyrie was second on the team in 3PM off catch and shoots at 1.3 and he shot 40% from deep. Third on the team in catch and shoot points, I am excited to see Kyrie get more of those type of opportunities. There can be times when Brad has him initiate offense, and then others when he can tell Kyrie to just focus on scoring and be aggressive. With the pressure off him to be THE GUY on offense with the development of Tatum/Jaylen and another All Star to run with in Hayward, we may see Kyrie become even MORE efficient which honestly is straight up terrifying.

We have something like 56 days until training camp opens, Kyrie and Hayward are pretty much cleared for 5-on-5, and you can be damn sure if the NBA puts out another mixtape like this for another member of this team, you better clear your morning.