Holiday Hoopers of the Week
This week we have been able to enjoy family time and spread holiday cheer. A time when the most important things are truly made clear. A time of celebration and gift-giving and with that the NBA gifted us as basketball fans the best Christmas present of all: The start of the new NBA season.
Contenders and stars. Big-time matchups and even bigger blowouts. But there can only be two players of the week. To kick off the 2020-21 NBA season the Holiday Hoopers of the Week are Kyrie Irving in the Eastern Conference and Paul George from the Western Conference.
All offseason the media and analysts spent their time squabbling about how Kyrie Irving could be the bomb that detonates the Nets championship hopes. Distracted by Irving’s comments about not needing a coach or spreading sage in Boston’s TD Garden, the media did not consider just how talented of a point guard he is.
Although all these concerns take place off the court, what Irving has done on the court has been masterful and undeniably elite. This week he totaled 63 points, 12 assists, and 10 rebounds while shooting over 60% from the floor and a whopping 64.7% from behind the arc.
Rather than dominating the ball and limiting the touches of his teammates around him, players like Kevin Durant, Caris LeVert, and Joe Harris have all been able to thrive quite nicely with Irving at the helm. That triumvirate alone accounts for 50 points per game on top of Irving’s 31.5 ppg in the last two games. With four guys commanding just over 90 points a game by themselves that does not even account for other pieces of the Nets’ excellent depth including guys like Spencer Dinwiddie, Landry Shamet, and DeAndre Jordan who also contribute big minutes for this team.
It may be too early to tell but, if you were worried about Kyrie hurting this team, you look dead wrong. The duo of Irving and Durant is looking like one of the best one-two punches in the league with both looking healthy coming off injury-riddled seasons.
When you drop 26 points in a blowout win over Stephen Curry and the Warriors on opening night, then follow it up with a 37-point outburst against your former team in the Boston Celtics on Christmas Day, I think it’s safe the day that Irving has made a great early season impression on MVP voters. Merry Christmas to Nets fans. You guys are going to be terrorizing the league all season.
PG-13 is officially in his bag this season! Although it is a small sample size, Paul George is already showing mid-season form as a guy who looks like he has rekindled a bit of that flame he had going during his 2018 run in Oklahoma City Thunder. Outside of one “Shaqtin’ a Fool” moment during the early moments of the Clippers game against the Lakers on Opening Night, PG has played lights out.
While propelling the Clippers to a 2-0 start against two of their biggest foes in the Western Conference, George was giving them buckets. 63 points, 11 rebounds, and 12 assists on 57.1% shooting from the floor and 55.6% from three. And if that was not enough for you, he even chipped in two steals and showed why he is one of the top wing defenders in the league by taking on multiple defensive assignments.
The biggest question with PG surrounds taking care of the ball. It looks like new head coach Tyronn Lue is looking to give George more control as a ball-handler and distributor (hence the nine assists against Denver), but with more ball-handling comes greater responsibility to take care of the rock. In two games he has 11 turnovers to 12 assists which is not a great assist to turnover ratio. Over time I think he will continue to grow into this role and take care of the ball more efficiently so I’m not too worried about the turnovers as the season goes along, just something to keep an eye out on.
With Kawhi Leonard potentially missing time after a facial injury suffered against Denver, expect PG to harbor more of the Clippers’ offensive load, and with that, there will be even more opportunities for him to show off why he was being considered one of the top-3 players in the game just two seasons ago.
Be on the lookout for a potential offensive clinic by PG today against the Dallas Mavericks or Tuesday against the Minnesota Timberwolves who both struggle significantly on the defensive side of the ball.
