Wait I am confused? ESPN just did their #NBARank list, which in itself caused alot of water cooler type talk. They had Kobe ranked #25, Carmelo Anthony ranked #15, which those two rankings alone caused people to not give the list any credibility. That same list had Cavs PG Kyrie Irving ranked #8. Irving is a great young player but I personally think he was ranked too high. Well it turns out people at ESPN agreed with that, which doesn’t make much sense because they were responsible for the list to begin with. They think Irving based on that rank is the most overrated player in the NBA. Hit the jump for more.
@IamJoeSports
Kevin Pelton is a writer for ESPN, however he was not part of the team that created the NBA Rank list. He wrote the following:
The #NBArank panel placed Irving eighth in the league this season, and though Irving undeniably has that kind of talent, putting him in the top 10 is premature because of defense and durability. Last season, the Cavaliers — never a defensive juggernaut under the best of circumstances — allowed 1.7 more points per 100 possessions with Irving on the floor, per NBA.com/Stats. Adjusting for his teammates, xRAPM (a version of adjusted plus-minus) found that Irving gave back two-thirds of his offensive value at the defensive end, making him only a slightly above-average contributor.
Ok, so that was a real technical explanation. Here is the simple one. Basically what he is saying is when you factor in what Irving does on the defensive end, it almost cancels out what he brings to the offensive end. The comparison actually got worse. “Only a handful of guards are viewed that favorably in general. But even in the context of those, Irving was sandwiched in between DJ Augustin and Jeff Teague, nowhere near the highest echelon”. Damn, comparing Irving to those 2 average guards is pretty disrespectful, but it is funny this is coming from an ESPN writer, the same place where the ranking came from to being with. Kyrie is nowhere near overrated. He might not be a true #8, but he is one of the top young guards in the league without question.
