Kyrie Irving asked the Cavaliers to trade him

Reports of a number of fans burning IT's Celtics jersey after the trade. With all due respect to Sauru and Dee4three...wth would you do that Celtics fanbase?

if you judge a fan base based on its worst members then you would have to concede that no one has a good fan base.

Well put.

It is strange, though. I guess it's becoming a custom, but it seems more appropriate when a player spurns their current team to leave via free agency, rather than being traded. And even then, only when the circumstances were somewhat controversial.

i chalked it up to people wanting attention on the internet

Reports of a number of fans burning IT's Celtics jersey after the trade. With all due respect to Sauru and Dee4three...wth would you do that Celtics fanbase?

if you judge a fan base based on its worst members then you would have to concede that no one has a good fan base.

The author of the article I've read made it look like there were dozens of fans doing that jersey burning thing, a perfect copycat episode of Lebron's departure in 2010. Now I see there was actually only one guy doing that stupid thing, probably for internet attention as you reckon.
There are idiots everywhere, supporting every team, but in some scenarios (like IT playing two days after his sister passed away), I expect those idiots to hold their tongues. I guess that's impossible in sports.

i chalked it up to people wanting attention on the internet

This is right. The guy who did the burning even tweeted it out to sports websites/stations. It's so easy to get negative attention and roll with it. See: Kardashians, Trump, Cashmeousside and the new chick who thinks she's black.

Thank you, sauru for the sensible post. Nice for a change to read a Celtic fan post questioning ainges win now move instead of the usual worshiping

Novi
Interesting points. There are a only a few teams that have the firepower to exploit IT instead of bogdown their offense. Even the wizards with their 2 scorers weren't particularly successful isolating him. Outside of a few post ups by obre.

I'm Interested to see IT worked into the cavs offense as he can work off the ball

Don't forget about the crowder addition,novu. Thompson, jae, lbj, smith, IT lineup should help hide IT

I'm Interested to see IT worked into the cavs offense as he can work off the ball

Yeah, but many of his points came from high PnRs, he won't be getting a lot of those since he will not be the primary ball handler. Moving off the ball will do though. He'll have to just sit in one corner and wait for a bullet pass from Lebron ( that was one of the most used moves by the Kyrie - LBJ combo.)

In other words, Iman Shumpert also requested a trade. I thought it was worth mentioning, but I ain't starting a thread for IS.

The more I think about it, the more I think Kyrie Irving is the better player overall. I personally think Isaiah would have been better in Boston in 2017-18 than Kyrie in Cleveland, but now the switch has occurred and he has to compete with others like Derrick Rose for minutes, I can see Isaiah's minutes dropping significantly. They probably also want to deflate his ego when it comes to the contract negotiation. And the injury may mean he doesn't get points at the foul line as frequently diminishing his efficiency rating. Looking over the Cavs roster currently, I'd say they're going to be the strongest team in the NBA, so it is good for Isaiah from that perspective.

As much as I detest Boston's decision and hope the Cavs kill the Celtics this season, at least they allowed him to rise to this standard in the first place. I don't think other teams would've given him the minutes.

i dont think anyone can disagree that this season just got more exciting

Yeah, for everyone outside of New York.

Cavs Considering Options Following Isaiah Thomas' Physical

This week's blockbuster trade between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Boston Celtics involving Kyrie Irving for Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder, Ante Zizic, and the Brooklyn Nets' 2018 first round pick has moved into an uncertain situation following the physical of Thomas.

Thomas was examined in Cleveland on Friday as he rehabs his season-ending hip injury. Thomas has yet to begin running this offseason.

"It's a very sensitive situation," said one source.

Danny Ainge admitted that Thomas' injury played "some" part in the Celtics making the trade.

Irving is scheduled to take his physical with the Celtics on Saturday.

Could it be that they think Isaiah is likely not gonna be the same player after the injury, Ainge was willing to include the Nets pick? If this was the case, makes a lot more sense why notoriously savvy GM like Ainge overpaid for Irving when nearly everyone thought the Cavs pulled one off.

It does possibly add some further context to the deal. I must admit that I'd forgotten IT had been injured.

David Stern called in the veto

ba zing

cleveland still can veto it. that would set the nba on fire especially since there is nothing else going on in the league

god damn it. lebron just wont let kyrie leave. he heard about the deal and called adam silver and told him to reject it. fucking commissioner lebron strikes again


man i was so hyped about this deal no we gonna be back to rooting for the nets to lose? damn it all

This off-season is so entertaining.

What a surprise, IT2 in jeopardy. The Cavs were upgrading at 2 positions on top of most likely a great first round pick. Sounded too good to be true. Back to square one?

Cavs ultimately have to cave and take like a second round pick or something. The deal's too good.

Thomas' hip can't be bad enough that the Celtics were planning on entering the season with him before Irving came around. The Cavs don't play for the regular season anyway, they've replaced a key component of the team in the middle of each of the last three years and still reached the finals, first with the trades to get JR and Shumpert and Mozgov, then swapping coaches, then throwing both Korver and Deron Williams into the rotation last year (remember they also tried to add both Bogut and Larry Sanders) and it doesn't faze them because they have the best player in the world, a superstar sidekick and a roster they remade on the fly to allow them to toss out any kind of look. They've already got Jeff Green, Derrick Rose and Jose Calderon to suck up regular season minutes with.

Thomas has twice had his role change during a season and been fine, when Sacramento finally handed him the keys to the point and then when the Suns shipped him to Boston, and both times he blew up even more. There's no reason to think he can't still come back after two months of rest and immediately start firing shots that have no business going in off handoffs again. Only this time, they're going to be coming from LeBron and Love so like two teams in the entire league are even going to know what to do in theory against it. Neither of which is in the East.

One thing I've seen underplayed in all the stories is that the Celtics had an average D last season, and downgraded it at three spots while barely moving the needle at a fourth. And Horford is going to be in the middle with nothing around him to help anymore. Which he hated about Atlanta.

It doesn't take much for shortie players to completely lose the wheel though. Like Lawson, whether it be due to the injury or just being out of shape, Thomas can become an useless player from a great player overnight imho.

I think Cavs will give this trade a go and take on the risk however. Besides, Crowder and pick come for free. You just can't lose this trade unless the worst of Isaiah happens.

Just read that the Cavs are asking about Brown and Tatum to sweeten the deal. If I'm the Celtics, I'm definitely balking at that.

there is no way they can give up either of those players in the deal without getting back the brooklyn pick

this is the best deal the cavs are going to get for kyrie, they will take it with maybe a 2nd round pick in addition.

It doesn't take much for shortie players to completely lose the wheel though. Like Lawson, whether it be due to the injury or just being out of shape, Thomas can become an useless player from a great player overnight imho.

any other examples?

dude gotta get paid before he starts getting lazy anyway

One thing I've seen underplayed in all the stories is that the Celtics had an average D last season, and downgraded it at three spots while barely moving the needle at a fourth. And Horford is going to be in the middle with nothing around him to help anymore. Which he hated about Atlanta.

yes good call. should bayne get more than the token minutes amir was getting? or more minutes at the 4 morris?

Jameer Nelson? I think quick and explosive first steps of these players are so important that once they lose it, they just aren't valuable anymore. So hearing Isaiah is doubtful to recover 100% without surgery sounds pretty damning especially as the Cavs don't have much time remaining to please LBJ. Isaiah supposedly the second best player taking significant time off won't help the situation and less than 100% even when fully recovered doesn't sound too promising either. I think these are the worries from the Cavs perspective.



As for the Celtics defense, I am interested to see how much of decline will happen. Even though the previous Celtics at individual level possessed stellar defensive ability, seemingly the result was below the expectations(perhaps due to lack of rim protecting presence and chemistry). Thing is that they still have Smart and added Morris. And you often see good defensive teams with one good perimeter and one good interior defender even with defensive loopholes like Curry, Harden, etc. What is unchanged is that the Celtics never had a legit paint protecting big but otherwise defensive downgrade imho might be overstated.

if its injury derailing him, yeah i agree with that. link to not being 100%/significant quickness and explosiveness lost even after surgery?

i wouldn't use GSW in your example though. KD, Green, Klay. morris aside from guarding lbj he is way out of their class as a interior defender

Morris is not a good man defender and he's worth even less as help. Amir and Zeller at least gave opponents something to think about, Crowder and Bradley were superior on man defenders and Jerebko was a better version of what they'll get from Morris in that regard. They're getting younger but usually means getting worse defensively.

Jameer Nelson isn't a great example.

The fact is, we've never had a player of this size, even close to using this many possessions at this age. Calvin Murphy is the only thing resembling Thomas and that was 40 years ago. Terrell Brandon used 20% fewer possessions and was at least two inches taller. And simply was never the scorer Thomas has been throughout his career.

Ty Lawson fell into a hole due to his long term alcoholism and he was never even a 20 points per 36 level guy, his high didn't crack 18. He never really had a serious injury either, remember 2011-12 was only a 66 game season. Denver dealt him to Houston because he was already in court ordered rehab due to one DUI and then facing further DUI charges in multiple states.

I mean, the key thing here to remember here is that until Kyrie came across their desk, Boston was intending on playing this season with Thomas. They did not plan on him having surgery and were planning on just extra rest during the season. Cleveland is just trying to sweeten the pot because there's a technical ambiguity they're exploiting. Yes, Thomas is technically in a situation that at some point will require surgery, but it's not immediately necessary. The Cavs don't actually care about this because anything that lowers his value helps them in case LeBron wants him back. The only reason for them to back out is if Thomas can't play this season, which Boston had spent all summer saying he would be doing and obviously were relying on since they didn't know they'd get another all-star point guard worth 25 points a game.

The Cavs also have seen what the value is for superstars in the trade market, and it sucks. Rolling the dice on Thomas making it through the season is better than sitting on Kyrie as he takes the team down with him for a worse package later while Thomas plays just fine for the Celtics who earn the right to get beat to death by the Warriors. The deal also saves them tens of millions in luxury tax, moves up their cap space a year and nets them a near guaranteed lottery pick.

The Cavs real problem is that Boston already cleared out a good chunk of their assets to land Hayward. They aren't going to give them Tatum or Brown AND a future lottery pick. Sending Smart instead of Thomas doesn't work for either team. And beyond that they don't have anything to offer. Unless the Cavs really want to pay Terry Roizer or something, which they don't because they want to do late season veteran replacement shopping. Maybe they can wring a pick swap out or something but a Celtics first rounder isn't going to be worth much for a while. So just trying to get a second rounder is really the only thing on the table here. And Boston knows that, so why give it up? "Worse case" is the deal falling through and they're where they planned to be this season while Kyrie tears apart the Cavs from inside.

The real question is why the league is allowing this farce to go on.

I amassed all the opponent shooting figures from NBA.com for 11 select star point guards during the regular season and playoffs during 2016-17 and this is how it looks (once again, I don't know anything about this data, how they accrue it):

First column is opponent shooting percentages, second is expected shooting percentages, third is difference (before the first and second column are rounded, thus there may be a tenth of a point differences).

Code:

REGULAR SEASON

1.  John Wall (6'4"):         42.9    44.5    -1.6    (78 games)
2.  Mike Conley (6'1"):      44.6    45.1    -0.5    (69 games)
3.  Kemba Walker (6'1"):      44.7    44.8    -0.1    (79 games)
4.  Stephen Curry (6'3"):      44.4    44.3    +0.0    (79 games)
5.  James Harden (6'5"):      46.1    45.0    +1.0    (81 games)
6.  Isaiah Thomas (5'9"):      45.5    44.3    +1.2    (76 games)
7.  Chris Paul (6'0"):         46.2    44.9    +1.2    (61 games)
8.  Damian Lillard (6'3"):      45.6    44.1    +1.5    (75 games)
9.  Kyle Lowry (6'0"):         47.1    44.5    +2.6    (60 games)
10. Russell Westbrook (6'3"):   48.6    45.2    +3.4    (81 games)
11. Kyrie Irving (6'3"):      49.9    44.7    +5.2    (72 games)

PLAYOFFS

1.  James Harden (6'5"):      35.7    45.3    -9.6    (11 games)
2.  Mike Conley (6'1"):      36.8    46.1    -9.3    (6 games)
3.  Russell Westbrook (6'3"):   40.6    45.9    -5.3    (5 games)
4.  Stephen Curry (6'3"):      39.3    43.8    -4.5    (17 games)
5.  Kyle Lowry (6'0"):         41.9    46.3    -4.5    (8 games)
6.  Kyrie Irving (6'3"):         43.7    46.3    -2.7    (18 games)
7.  John Wall (6'4"):         42.4    44.6    -2.2    (13 games)
8.  Isaiah Thomas (5'9"):      44.7    45.5    -0.8    (15 games)
9.  Damian Lillard (6'3"):      51.2    49.8    +1.3    (4 games)
10. Chris Paul (6'0"):         50.0    46.4    +3.6    (7 games)
N/A Kemba Walker (6'1"):    -

So only 3 of 11 had better than expected opponent shooting percentages, and Isaiah is middle ranked during the season while Kyrie Irving was dead last! While all players, including Kyrie, improved their game in the playoffs, most improved dramatically and Isaiah was on the lower end of that improvement and ranked 8/10 despite opponents scoring less than expected against him.

I'll assume this data means something and that the defensive inadequacies coming from Isaiah's height are completely overblown until someone explains why it is flawed.

EDIT: Earlier I posted that he was getting 12 FTA per game. It is in fact 8. 12 is his per 100 possessions score. I sometimes miss the headers on basketball reference pages... It did seem really high, though, and it should have have set off an alarm that the data was wrong. All I can say to that is I've been getting 3 hours of sleep per day for most of the last 2 weeks and am always occupied, so maybe that's it... Still, it's almost twice as much as Irving per game.

Mostly adding, not particularly disagreeing to your view, benjo.

Defense is one area that is really tough to project imho. They were among the top 5 defensive teams in 15-16 season, but they were mere mediocre in the following season 16-17. Both seasons were with Isaiah playing the most minutes and biggest defensive contributors being Crowder and Avery. Having so successful defensively one season, it's abnormal their defense almost became league average in the following season even with Crowder and Avery still playing the key part in their defense. Gone were Evan Turner and Sullinger, their minutes most replaced by combination of Horford, Smart, and Amir. Theoretically, you would not expect such a large drop in defense with that change, but it happened. I think this tells us two things related to our discussion: 1) Isaiah could still be part of very successful D even though fans like to highlight his poor defensive ability little too often(proved by 15-16 season), 2) Avery and Crowder are nice defense first players but they are not the game changers unless system calls for it. This is why despite the loss of talent in Celtics defense, I don't think it's to an extent where it is completely unrecoverable. Horford still remains to be a real issue where team effort could make up for the loss, to remain as a mediocre defensive team. But top 5 most likely won't happen as it did for 1 season with Avery and Crowder.

Jameer Nelson isn't a great example.

The fact is, we've never had a player of this size, even close to using this many possessions at this age. Calvin Murphy is the only thing resembling Thomas and that was 40 years ago. Terrell Brandon used 20% fewer possessions and was at least two inches taller. And simply was never the scorer Thomas has been throughout his career.

Ty Lawson fell into a hole due to his long term alcoholism and he was never even a 20 points per 36 level guy, his high didn't crack 18. He never really had a serious injury either, remember 2011-12 was only a 66 game season. Denver dealt him to Houston because he was already in court ordered rehab due to one DUI and then facing further DUI charges in multiple states.

Isn't that why it's worrisome. Effective undersized players becoming sudden minus contributors in supposed prime and capable years(agewise) regardless of the issues, minor or major. In fact, Isaiah could be looking at to become a first undersized guy in a long time(since Stockton?) to play at high level entering the 30s. Or derailed as that's where the concern lies at the moment.