Kyrie Irving Just Challenged Dave To Play One-On-One And Has No Idea What He Just Signed Up For
Jesse D. Garrabrant. Getty Images.The beauty of the internet in 2023 is the fact that when you wake up and fire up the timeline for the first time, you never know what's coming your way. One minute it's Zion getting put on blast by OF models/pornstars. The next minute it's Paul Pierce talking about how there are websites where you can order a girlfriend for the day. Literally anything is possible.
Including Kyrie Irving challenging Dave to a game of one on one.
Yes, that's a real sentence.
It all dates back to a few days ago when Klutch/Kyrie's camp clearly put out there that he was trying to get LeBron to join him in Dallas. The idea alone was outrageous because the Lakers are not about to buy LeBron out and the Mavs don't have anything outside of Luka that the Lakers would want. When the news hit, that's when all this stuff began
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This is certainly not a new beef for anyone that's been paying attention these last few years.
But for the most part Kyrie never really responded. That changed the other day.
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I dunno, is what Dave suggested even that far from the truth? Team after team and front office after front office do sort of fall for the same thing when it comes to Kyrie. The Celts did it, the Nets did it, and the Mavs are currently doing it. His basketball talent is so immense that it can blind you from everything else that's involved with getting into the Kyrie Irving business. Since he left LeBron, it hasn't worked out anywhere else, yet more teams and more fanbases convince themselves it'll be different now that he's on their team.
Things naturally ramped back up today after this tweet from Dave earlier today
Which brings us to our current one on one challenge
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Now this is incredible. I think we're all in agreement that this is something that needs to happen. There's no chance he expected Dave to accept his challenge, which makes me think he doesn't really understand who he's tweeting back and forth with. Kyrie now has to accept and make it happen after he tried to bully someone into a game of one on one just because he's an NBA star.
The problem here is there's no chance Kyrie knows what he just did. I feel confident that he has never seen one of the best old school Barstool videos we have, which is the entire point of this blog. Who doesn't love to relive the good 'ol days on a Friday afternoon?
In terms of the strategy, Dave is actually spot on with his approach. Kyrie isn't the greatest when it came to defending post ups, giving up 0.86 points per possession this past season. Last year, he ranked in the 46th perecentile defending post ups. The year before, 64th percentile. You can catch him on the block, he tries to gamble a lot and reach instead of playing it straight up, so I woudl say that's the right approach.
I would advise not relying too much on the spot up jumper as Kyrie ranked in the 92nd percentile defending those shots this year, but the idea of tiring him out and then shooting over him isn't the worst way to go about it. My only advice for Dave would be to make sure he keeps his fundamentals defensively. Don't watch the ball, watch Kyrie's belly button. Say what you want about him, but those handles are serious business. You're not going to steal it from him, so just play honest defense. Be physical with him. When it comes to forcing Kyrie to take a certain type of shot, there aren't a ton of options that work
so the best defense might actually be a good offense in this scenario. Maybe force some 18 footers/long 2s and hope that Kyrie goes full 2019 MIL series.
Either way, I think we are all in agreement that at some point this summer this has to happen. I say Summer League in mid July is the perfect time. Make it a showdown in Vegas when the entire NBA world comes in for the week. Seems like a no brainer if you ask me.