Things have begun to heat up once again around the Cleveland Cavaliers after reports on Friday indicated that All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving had recently requested a trade.
This has created the discussion about what the Cavaliers should do with Irving, who is about to enter the third year of his five-year, $94.3 million deal. Tom Haberstroh of ESPN has brought an intriguing statistical fact about the 25-year-old's impact on the court last season.
Just gonna leave this here … Cavs with Kyrie Irving ON, LeBron James OFF last season: -120 in 635 minutes.
— Tom Haberstroh (@tomhaberstroh) July 21, 2017
What also shouldn't be lost here is that the Cavaliers were struggling drastically prior to LeBron James rejoining the fray back in the summer of 2014. They had experienced four straight losing campaigns winning no greater than 33 games in any season.
Although Irving has taken his game to the next level as an elite scorer in the league, he has settled in as just impacting the game with his ability to put the ball in the basket. Being a playmaker as a facilitator isn't the strongest suit of his game, which the presence of James has allowed him to primarily focus on scoring.
That said, James is the ultimate impact player as his unique skill set as a scorer and distributor allows him to have a much larger impact on the game in a positive manner. There is simply no other player in the league that can put his imprint on the game like the four-time league MVP.
More importantly, this may point to Irving being more expendable than what most think.
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