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Kyrie Irving is a good player and could become great, but he's no superstar and his market value > productivity.

If the Cavs want to win a ring, they should leverage their best asset and trade him for more valuable pieces while his stock is soaring: http://lifeisapeachbasket.blogspot.com/ ... going.html

Agree or disagree? Would love to hear your thoughts/feedback.

maybe?

Pretty unfair to him at this point, IMO. Hasn't really had anything around him to take the focus off.

What would they get in return? And it is a tough spot to bring Free Agents into as well. If they can get growth from their youth, hit on a pick, and convince someone to play with Kyrie I think that is their only shot.

I wouldn't trade for him, but trading him away is a different story. I would agree with the assessment that his market value, right now, exceeds his productivity but he's still pretty young, and we don't really have a crystal ball. Most importantly, I don't think trading him away is a real-world option for the GM. Fans would probably riot and you, the GM, would be fired days later. There are more things than just player productivity when it comes to such decisions

Totally agree there are additional variables to take into account, but I think most folks are missing the forest for the trees here: he's a good, young player, but he's nowhere near a top-10 talent at the moment and never will be. Is he a valuable player? Sure. But IMO, he's more valuable as a trade asset than he is as a building block for a contender.

Well to make that statement, who else values him and what would they be willing to give up?

I for one wouldn't mind a 3-Way deal with the Celtics moving Rondo, getting Kyrie, another team getting Rondo with the Cavs getting draft picks and some young pieces.

I can imagine a lot of teams who would be more than willing to give productive pieces up for Irving since he's a young prolific scorer with a high Q-score who is, for lack of a better term, a sexy name.
For instance, if I'm the Cavs I'm calling Denver and offering Kyrie for Lawson + Manimal. Who says no?

Player chemistry is a hard thing to predict. While it may be possible to see that Irving would be more valuable on a different team, it's still a tough sell to give up "more value" to get him.

GM's have staffs of scouts and analysts who study this stuff for a living. It's unlikely any of them are told to "get a sexy name, even if we have to give up more than we're getting".

With Irving, the Cavs have probably less than 1% chance of a Ring within 10 years. Trading him, I'd say it's still less than 1%.

@docoolstuff wrote:Manimal

Faried is not exactly the poster child for high productivity and low market value (which, I guess, is what you're shooting for given your original post) with his -1.9 D-RAPM, ranking him 35th worst on D

Mike G wrote:
GM's have staffs of scouts and analysts who study this stuff for a living. It's unlikely any of them are told to "get a sexy name, even if we have to give up more than we're getting".

Agreed no one (except maybe the Knicks/Nets) trade for players b/c of cachet and no one is trading more for him strictly because he's popular, but I think your missing my point: Kyrie is currently perceived as a young superstar by both the media and GM's. Check out this vote from last year when Kyrie ranked 3rd (!) among players that GM's would most want to start a franchise with. That's insane! There's an idiot GM out there just waiting to give up the farm for Kyrie.

Faried is not exactly the poster child for high productivity and low market value (which, I guess, is what you're shooting for given your original post) with his -1.9 D-RAPM, ranking him 35th worst on D

You're totally right that Faried's defense is lacking (to say the least) and that he's likely not a great fit on a Cavs team that needs more bulk/rim protecting next to TT/Varejao. That said, he's on a rookie contract, undervalued by the masses (so you can likely re-sign him to a reasonable deal) and a rebounding beast. Not the best example, but you get the idea...

I would start thinking about it. Probably best to give him until the next trade-deadline unless a really nice deal opens up, but it is looking like Irving is going to settle into that sub-max appropriately paid semi-star category (at best), which has limited value in a capped league.

@docoolstuff wrote:

Mike G wrote:
GM's have staffs of scouts and analysts who study this stuff for a living. It's unlikely any of them are told to "get a sexy name, even if we have to give up more than we're getting".

Agreed no one (except maybe the Knicks/Nets) trade for players b/c of cachet and no one is trading more for him strictly because he's popular, but I think your missing my point: Kyrie is currently perceived as a young superstar by both the media and GM's. Check out this vote from last year when Kyrie ranked 3rd (!) among players that GM's would most want to start a franchise with. That's insane! There's an idiot GM out there just waiting to give up the farm for Kyrie.

To be fair, that vote among GMs was taken LAST year. Through 2 seasons, he was a 46% FG and over a 39% 3PT shooter. It was reasonable to expect that these numbers would not take a significant decline. Now I think that GMs would be aware that his value has dropped very significantly from last year. His shooting percentages have dipped significantly. With that said (and maybe I'm proving your point here), I think that it is reasonable to call this year (and really just the first half of this year) as a slight aberration. The whole situation in Cleveland has not been great and there is no logical reason to think Kyrie cannot get back to his efficient self from him first two seasons (though he does need to get better to merit a max contract and that potential has surely been brought into question).

VJL wrote:I would start thinking about it. Probably best to give him until the next trade-deadline unless a really nice deal opens up, but it is looking like Irving is going to settle into that sub-max appropriately paid semi-star category (at best), which has limited value in a capped league.

Kyrie is absolutely getting the full-fledged max. (Probably the DRose max)

In isolation, trading him makes sense, as pertains to his perceived public value vs on-court production. But the reason I answered "maybe" is you just don't know what was offered; how other GMs value him, and so on. Plus, the moment you start dangling a guy, his value drops a bit.

Since Kyrie has potential to be great, (I think that's fair-ish), the best course of action is probably just stay the line. Similar to DMC in Sacto; it was looking like he was headed to overpaid land, but his play this year has proven the contract retroactively, in that he's a deserving max. Very good player. Kyrie could make a similar jump.

As a player Kyrie can get a lot better, so I don't think trading him is necessarily about his production (currently not all that)

However if he's mentally not checked into Cleveland, it's probably worth looking at trading him