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On Friday’s The Basketball Jones “Overdose”, the crew of J.D. Skeets, Tas Melas, Trey Kirby and Lee Ellis crafted their first, second and third-team NBA starting fives. Many of your regulars made the cut, including LeBron James and Chris Paul, but what I found extremely interesting was the mention by Skeets that he wanted to place Irving on the team if he had played more games in 2013.
Another season of hope in the post-LeBron era quickly evaporated for the cabs after Irving got hit with the injury bug once again in the latter portions of the NBA season. Given that Irving had already proved the team’s star and averaged 22.5 points and 5.9 assists per game, it’s no huge shock that he Cleveland Cavaliers would flounder with their star second-year point guard — and perhaps the best second-year player in the league — on the bench.
It wasn’t easy for Irving to take, either.
“It starts to wear on you mentally, it starts to wear on you physically,” Irving said. “It’s hard when you’re making so many mistakes. The film sessions and practice get to you a little bit, but we all get paid to do this at a really high level and we just have to pick it up from a mental standpoint first, and physical.”
All we can do is continue to talk what-ifs, but if he Irving can top the 60-game mark in 2013-14, I’m willing to predict that Cleveland will make the playoffs for the first time since their previous championship window closed.
Thomas Emerick is a Senior Writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @ThomasEmerick, “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google
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