Hypothetical Kyrie/Dame question

I hear what you are saying but i think Kyrie is a better fit with LeBron than Dame would be.

They are very similar in many ways but kyrie is a better scorer (getting to the rim/finishing through contact/one on one scorer) where as Dame is a better passer/floor gemeral but because LeBron will always the be the focus of any offense he is in and is already such an amazing passer I feel like Kyrie is still the better fot for the Cavs offense.

In a vacuum you are somewhat correct. Dame does not have the luxury of playing with Lebron James. On his team he is the "Lebron" meaning contextually he is the guy that is seen as the franchise guy. Kyrie does benefit from playing with Lebron James….a guy who in the finals was posting 39, 18, 9 numbers where Kyrie could simply focus on being an assassin.

Pre-Lebron when Kyrie was asked to carry a franchise he was asked to be more for his team.

However; winning is always rewarded. Hitting bit shots on the biggest stage is always rewarded and always will be. So Kyrie is benefiting from the fact that on the biggest stage he outplayed the 2 time MVP and hit back breaking shot after back breaking shot. And his defense wasn’t too bad either.

So in a vacuum, if both were in exact situation would there be similar results? There’s a great chance that is correct or even that Dame "leads" teams better than Kyrie.

But that situation does not exist and thus Kyrie is seen as the better player because he is now a CHAMPION who was HUGE when it matters the most.

Both great players who are tough to guard.

Kyrie’s bag is a little bit more filled….lol…but both can get going on you in a hurry.

It’s close, but I’d go with Damian Lillard. The Blazers lost 4 starters and he led that team to 44 wins, the 5th seed and into the 2nd round of the playoffs. Majority picked the Blazers to finish with one of the worst records in the league. And before you say, "Well, LAC lost Chris Paul and Blake Griffin" remember the Blazers beat them at full strength game 3 and were leading when Paul and Griffin got injured during game 4. Vs GSW, after game one, they led 137 mins compared to GSW’s 61 mins the rest of that series. They just couldn’t close out games. 

Lillard is the more durable player. I believe he’s a better leader and has more of the demeanor/mindset of a leader. While I do think Irving is a more creative ball handler/isolation player, I love the fact that Lillard is a quicker decision maker off of his moves. He’s extremely decisive and doesn’t need to hold onto the ball (stagnating the offense). Irving is definitely the stronger finisher/shot maker around the rim, but Lillard does finish over 50% in that area. Both are very good in the mid-range. Lillard has better vision as a passer and moves the ball quicker.

It’s close, but I’d go with Lillard as of right now.

 I know Dame deserves a lot of credit for getting that team to the playoffs but the emergence of CJ MCCollum was HUGE. People tend to harp on that Kyrie is blossoming because of Lebron. No,  he was a star before Lebron came.  He wasn’t was winning before Lebron but he didn’t have anything around him. Kyrie best teammate pre-Lebron was Dion Waiters. How was he supposed to win that team. Can’t take nothing away from Lillard, he is a beast but so is Irving. Give me Irving with a slight edge and also depends on the situation as well as to who I would take.

 Dame and Kyrie are both good enough to be the best players on playoff teams IMO, but Kyrie hasn’t gotten the good chance to prove that because A. He was 19-21 years old (Dame was 25 this year) B. The team was tanking until at least his first year was over, if not until his second C. Dion Waiters, who’s getting $3.5 million compared to the $23 million CJ McCollum is getting. 

I’ll go with Kyrie being better, though, because he’s way harder to guard. He can score the ball like a more efficient Kobe/Melo when he’s on, Dame just can’t. It’s either he’s making a ton of threes or he’s screwed. He can’t beat any defense in any circumstance, and Kyrie can. 

 Lillard better to me IMO, incredible shooter off the bounce and off the catch, the closest thing we have to Curry.

Also a much better leader from all reports and while he used to be strictly a jump shooter, he has gotten quite good at getting to the rack on closeouts and finishing.

I think not only is Lillard better, he’d actuallu be a better fit alongside Lebron as he’s better playing off the ball.

That said, Irving really picked up his D against the Warriors and Lillard hasn’t shown that yet.

But I still think Dame wins out over Kyrie on both counts.

Kyrie showed that he has the capability to be the  best player on the court no matter who’s on it. He shot way better from the field against GSW than KD and Westbrook, who are both top five players. KD is one of the greatest scorers ever, and even he couldn’t do what Kyrie did against GSW. I can’t really see Dame doing as well as Kyrie did in any circumstances. He’s a great shooter who scores a lot by being a great shooter. That style can only take you so far a lot of times, unless you’re the greatest shooter of all time like Curry — who is a much better ballhandler and finisher than Dame anyway. Kyrie is a great scorer who can score from everywhere on the court like a smaller, quicker Carmelo Anthony or Kobe Bryant. Midrange, fadeaways, long range, at the rim, etc. Dame is a very good three-point shooter, but he’s really pretty pedestrian when it comes to creating space for his midrange game, where he only shoots about 37% at. He only shot 37% on his jumpshot overall last year.

Kyrie shot 48% on midrange jumpshots last year. Considering his volume, that’s extremely impressive, Michael Jordan/Dirk Nowitzki level stuff. The midrange jumper is the one shot that cannot be guarded because if a great slasher is going north to south you’ve got to back up because they will go by you. Because of that, there’s always room to pull-up and take a midrange j, and Kyrie makes those like it’s nothing. That helps make him a far more unpredictable scorer in playoff situations, which will is what separates the good scorers from the great ones, the all stars from the superstars, etc. Add in his GOAT handle, and it’s impossible to prevent Kyrie from taking a shot he’s not comfortable with. That cannot be said for Dame, and we see that by looking at Dame’s very weak 40% fg percentage.

With that said, I do have to say Dame’s most recent regular season was more impressive than any Kyrie has had. He averaged 25 ppg with 7 assists 4 rpg and an efficient 56 TS% to go along with it. Those are big time numbers that best kyrie’s best season of 22.5 points with 6 assists 4 rebounds on 57 TS%. Dame also made the playoffs — with the caveat that CJ McCollum is probably close to all star level as a player, which is something Kyrie never had before he had LeBron. Also, Dame is 4 years older than Kyrie was when Kyrie had his own team. Still, we still have never seen Kyrie get to lead a team to the playoffs — whether it was in decent circumstances or not. 

 I think Kyrie can be the best player on a playoff team. If you can be a high-usage second best player on a championship team, you can definitely be the best player on a playoff team. Dame can theoretically be both, but thus far, I have not seen that he has the talent to outplay any player the way Kyrie has proven to be capable is capable of. You can say he had LeBron, but every great player needs another one to win a chip, and the fact that Kyrie did what he did against a team as stacked as GSW means he could probably have done it against any team in recent memory, which again, can’t be said for everyone.