McGuire: Player Capsule on Kyrie Irving

One of my good cyber-friends, Aaron McGuire took on the somewhat insane endeavor of writing a player capsule about each NBA player over at his fantastic blog, GothicGinobili.com. As a part-time Cleveland Cavaliers fan, Aaron has been able to talk at length with me about the understated brilliance of Kyrie Irving. Today, he published his capsule about Irving (something I have been eagerly anticipating for months). It manages to explicate everything that we have discussed in hours of Google Chat messages in a manner far more graceful and thoughtful than I am currently able to do. Here's an excerpt, but just read it:

Then you get to his rookie season. Kyrie didn't play a ton of minutes his rookie year -- topped out at just over 30 per game, and he missed bits of the season with a few minor maladies -- but when he played he was undeniably phenomenal. He threw passes that were steps ahead of the defense, often setting up the ball straight in the cradle of an offensive player's shooting motion for a beautiful dish only ruined by the fact that the offensive player was Samardo Samuels. Whoops. His dribble remains one of the most inexplicable wonders the league has to offer, and Irving's speed with the ball is virtually peerless. The form on his shot was legitimately immaculate, and Irving was a few trick shots at the rim and a few injury-tarred games short of a 50-40-90 season -- as a rookie, remember.