The Cleveland Cavaliers trading Kyrie Irving is a notion that has been kicked around more than a few times, but please stop it.
Kyrie Irving was supposed to have been traded last year at the deadline in February, as the rumors were swirling about how unhappy he was with Mike Brown, Dan Gilbert and the general suckiness of the team he was playing on. That all changed in the offseason when Irving signed a max contract with the Cavaliers and then watched as the front office added LeBron James, Kevin Love and a slew of other veterans.
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But ever since then, it’s been a slow go of things for the Cavaliers and specifically for Irving. He was blasted for not passing the ball enough and for not tallying enough assists and he’s still the subject of trade rumors despite the Cavaliers having a recent upswing in quality. The Christmas loss to the Miami Heat brought back those trade rumors involving Kyrie Irving but they need to stop — like, right now.
For starters, Irving is a centerpiece of this Cavaliers team and always has been ever since he arrived. LeBron James is the franchise, but Irving is the guy who will be here long after LeBron is gone. People just need to get over the fact that he’s never really going to be a pass-first point guard until he has time to truly sit down and adjust his game.
Irving is doing his best to pivot in the middle of a season, but changing your style of play is not easy. Irving is a scoring point guard who can become more of a passing guard while stills scoring. Derrick Rose has done this in Chicago and so has Chris Paul in Los Angeles.
Trading Irving solves nothing and leaves a massive hole at a position that is already thing. Unless you can acquire a top 10 point guard in the NBA, trading Irving is a downgrade and detrimental to the success of the team. Acquiring a compliment to come off the bench and be a pass-first guard is something that maybe should be considered instead.
Then again, if the Cavaliers would just find some defense and add a rim protector, then Kyrie Irving’s points wouldn’t go to waste and his low assist total wouldn’t be so easy to pick on and be used to justify trading him away.
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