INDEPENDENCE, OHIO — There are many ways to assist a basketball team or organization, other than a pinpoint pass.
Kyrie Irving, the
Cleveland Cavaliers' on-court assist leader the past three seasons, did so with a pen stroke.
LeBron James made that plain again as the Cavs opened training camp. He acknowledged that, while "95 percent" of his decision to return was rooted in his deep connection to Northeast Ohio, it was at least partly due to his desire to connect regularly on the court with with a 22-year old who had already appeared in two All-Star games and who had already agreed to stay in Cleveland for the long term.
"I've never played with a point guard like Kyrie Irving, a guy that can kind of take over a game for himself, when we need it," James said.
That's an overwhelming understatement.
No offense to Jeff McInnis, Eric Snow, Daniel Gibson, Delonte West, Damon Jones, Mo Williams, Carlos Arroyo, Mike Bibby, Mario Chalmers, Norris Cole or any of the other point guards with whom James has spent considerable time on the court over the course of his career.
But of that group, only Williams was counted upon to consistently provide offense while playing with James. He placed second on the Cavaliers in scoring average in 2008-09 and '09-10. McInnis was fourth on the Cavaliers in '04-05 after missing much of the '03-04 season, and Chalmers was fourth on the
Heat in '11-12 and '13-14. Others were much further down the team chart.
Typically, James has played with point guards who primarily served as spot-up shooters and secondary ball-handlers, leaving him largely responsible for initiating and finishing possessions. That renders his alignment with Irving among the Cavaliers' most compelling storylines.
Their collaboration could be cataclysmic for the
NBA if they get it right. Otherwise it could serve to suggest that another, more common model, is preferable: one in which there's a clearer offensive pecking order between transcendent superstar and point guard.
There haven't been many wing players anywhere near James' stratosphere in the past quarter-century. And, whether by roster deficiency or offensive design, few from that esteemed group have played even a single season with a point guard trusted to carry a major percentage of the playmaking and scoring burden.
One advanced statistic,
usage rate, is helpful—if not definitive
—in illustrating this trend. As defined by Basketball-Reference.com, usage rate attempts to quantify the percentage of offensive possessions that a player impacts, or "uses."
Its formula includes three standard measures: field-goal attempts, free-throw attempts and turnovers. While it is imperfect in assessing playmaking responsibilities, because it does not include touches, passes or assists in its tabulation, it does give a snapshot of a player's overall offensive involvement.
It also shows that James, Michael Jordan,
Kobe Bryant and
Dwyane Wade have not played with especially
involved point guards. (Neither, for that matter, did
Allen Iverson, unless you classified him as the point guard due to his size.)
Start with Jordan, whose primary point guards in Chicago included Ennis Whatley, Wes Matthews Sr., Kyle Macy, John Paxson, Sam Vincent, B.J. Armstrong, Steve Kerr and the formerly electric 2-guard Ron Harper, who, at that late stage of his career, concentrated mostly on defense.
Jordan's usage rate ranged from 29.8 percent to 38.6 percent with the
Bulls, while the primary point guard on his team ranged from 12.1 percent to 19.3 percent, with Vincent hitting that mark in 1988-89 (Armstrong got up to 19.0 percent in '94-95). Paxson started all but three of 243 games between '89 and '92 and recorded the lowest usage rate among regulars in each of those three seasons.
Bryant's point guard-partner history, like his speech pattern and baseline fadeaway, resembles Jordan's.
The
Lakers great became a starter in his third season, '98-99, recording a usage rate of 25.3 percent. He has not been under 29.1 percent since '99-00, rising to as high as 38.7 percent in '05-06, a season he largely spent scowling at Smush Parker.
Since triangle offense guru Phil Jackson shaped many of Bryant's teams, it shouldn't surprise that many of Bryant's point guards fit the Paxson/Kerr profile. The closest replica was Derek Fisher, whose usage rate was less than half of Bryant's in five of the six seasons they started together, and always near the bottom of Lakers rotation players.
Only twice has a Lakers point guard topped 20 percent in usage rate during the 13 seasons Bryant has regularly started; one was a Hall of Famer (Gary Payton's rate was 20.4 percent in his one season as a Laker, '03-04), and the other (Ramon Sessions, 20.5 percent) was a late-season addition.
Everyone else, from Derek Harper to Ron Harper to Lindsey Hunter to Chucky Atkins to Jordan Farmar to Fisher to Parker) topped out in the teens.
Wade? You'll find similar data. His lowest usage rate (25.0 percent) came when he played point guard as a rookie, soaring to 34.9 percent and 36.2 percent, before tapering some after James' arrival in Miami in '10. Chalmers has been his backcourt sidekick for most of the past six seasons, with a career usage rate of 16.5 percent, and a high of 17.4 percent. Jason Williams was Miami's most active point guard during Wade's run, and his numbers (18.5 percent and 18.2 percent) weren't especially high in his two Heat seasons.
Carmelo Anthony diverges from his peers a bit, in that, while pegged as a gunner, he has been paired with some high-usage point guards.
Andre Miller was right around 20 percent for three of their seasons together in Denver, and Iverson was at 27.0 percent while playing a lot at the position for a season-and-a-half with the
Nuggets. Chauncey Billups was at 21.8 percent, 24.3 percent and 21.4 percent over a three-season span, and Denver thrived with the Billups-Melo combination. (Jeremy Lin was at 28.1 percent for the
Knicks in '11-12, but some of that magical 35-game run came in Anthony's absence.)
But the true outlier is
Kevin Durant, who has had a lower usage rate than
Russell Westbrook in each of the past four seasons—30.6 to 31.6, 31.3 to 32.7, 29.8 to 32.8 and 33.0 to 34.4. And while Durant has reached an NBA Finals, he hasn't done what Jordan, Bryant, Wade or James did while playing with more subdued, somewhat subservient point guards.
He hasn't hoisted the Larry O'Brien trophy.
"You look historically, over the last 20-plus years, in terms of teams that have won the championship, very few have had point guards who dominated the ball," said former pass-first point guard Avery Johnson, who now works for ESPN. "You know, Chauncey Billups did (for
Detroit). And the team that won with the
Mavericks (in '11), Jason Kidd a little bit, very little. But it was more guys like J.J. Barea and Jason Terry. So it's a different game. You look at the
Spurs, Tony Parker dominates the ball, but he's had to learn how to play over the years when (Manu) Ginobili has the ball. Finding his spots. Becoming a better shooter."
So, back to James and Irving.
Will they instantly become a dynamic duo?
Each may need to sacrifice some.
James' usage rate has ranged from 28.2 percent to 33.8 percent over his 11 seasons, while his primary point guards have ranged from 10.9 percent to 23.4 percent, with Williams recording the highest and second-highest numbers (23.4 and 22.0 percent). Snow, Jones, Gibson and even West were generally ornamental, rather than essential, to offensive sets—Snow was last among regulars in usage in both of his seasons as a Cavaliers starter.
In Miami, James played with a point guard in Chalmers whose usage rate was a bit higher than James' typical Cavaliers point guard, if not as high as McInnis or Williams. And, of course, James played with an off-guard whose usage rate was astronomical compared to any of his Cleveland complements. Wade actually had a higher usage rate than James in their first season together (31.6 to 31.5), before taking a small step back (31.3 to 32.0, 29.5 to 30.2, 27.9 to 31.0) over the next three seasons.
You know whose usage rate was roughly the same as Wade's each of the past three seasons?
Kyrie Irving.
The Australian import recorded rates of 28.7, 30.2 and 28.2 percent, as he led his Cavaliers in several standard statistical categories but failed to take it to the postseason. (Antawn Jamison was second at 26.2 percent in '11-12, and Dion Waiters was second at 26.1 and 26.9 percent, respectively, the past two seasons).
So it is James' experience with Wade that he will draw most upon now, as he and Irving determine how to divvy up the dribbling, distribution and shooting in new coach David Blatt's European-style offensive sets. Blatt sounds a bit like James' former coach, Erik Spoelstra, in his shunning of specific position definitions; he characterizes Irving, James and even slasher Dion Waiters as "ball guards."
He hopes that Irving's presence in particular will "take some of the load" off James, "in terms of having to initiate offense, having to bear the brunt of the physical load of getting the ball to places, and [of] making plays for himself and for others. We do have some other guys that can do that, and hopefully that will serve him well, as far as making it easy for him to get some easy ones. But also as the game goes along and the season goes along, to keep him from wearing down. Just because there are other people sharing the load."
James grew physically and mentally weary of that burden last season, one made heavier by Wade's frequent absences. So he doesn't intend to stifle Irving's activity or creativity.
"For me, I handle the ball when I get the ball off the backboard," James said Saturday. "I'm a good rebounder, I like to rebound and I kind of push it from that instance. In certain sets I'll probably handle the ball a little bit, but it's Kyrie's show. He's our point guard. He's our floor general and we need him to put us in position to succeed offensively. He has to demand that and command that from us with him handling the ball."
Yet James did acknowledge that playing together may be more of a work in progress for Irving than for himself, "because I just spent four years doing it, playing with D-Wade. We had our adjustment period where we both had to move off the ball. It was something we weren’t comfortable with going into it. My coming here doing it four years in a row where I played off the ball a lot, and I developed my inside game, and I developed my catch-and-shoot jump shots and things of that nature. So it will be more of an adjustment for him, not for me."
Avery Johnson agreed.
"The biggest adjustment is going to be for Kyrie playing off the ball," the former Mavericks and
Nets coach said. "You look at Kyrie, for the most part here in Cleveland, he's been on the ball. You look at him this summer with the World Cup team,
on the ball. Even playing with some of the other guys like
Derrick Rose and Steph Curry, he was on the ball. That's why he had such a terrific summer."
Johnson identified Irving's three-point accuracy as a critical component in Cleveland's success, after a dip to 35.8 percent from that distance last season. Cavaliers players, while still acclimating themselves to Blatt's offensive principles, do expect it to be predicated on ball movement, precision and most of all, spacing.
"So (Irving's) ability to space the floor and make open shots (is important)," Johnson said. "Because LeBron James is going to draw double-teams when he's posted up, he's going to get trapped on pick-and-rolls. When he tries to isolate, teams are going to load up or zone. So there are going to be a lot of opportunities with Kyrie on the floor for him to make some plays. I also think that's why LeBron recruited guys like Mike Miller and James Jones—spacers—because the game is all about space."
Irving will have those players at his disposal, too, when he penetrates. He has sounded positively giddy about all the possibilities, after taking considerable heat for the struggles of limited rosters in his first three seasons.
He spoke Friday of being "OK" with "all the things I did kind of terrible" last season, because, as a "young guy figuring it out," it will help him as he plays with a more veteran group now. He joked about how "weird" it is to be the youngest on the team again, but was serious about his appreciation for the upgraded roster.
"It’s just going to make my job that much easier," Irving said. "Regardless of what people [are] saying, how my role is going to change, and all the scoring. I mean, I only did the scoring because I was asked to do it. I mean, I had to do it to be in the best possible place to win. And changing my role, it's not necessarily changing. I'm going to continue to be myself but now that we have other great players, it just creates more space and opportunity for me to make other people better. That's how I look at it, as an opportunity to grow as a player and as a point guard, and be who I feel I'm destined to be, and that's a great point guard."
No doubt he's a different point guard than James has ever had. Than Bryant has ever had. Than Jordan ever had. But it's unreasonable to expect James to defer all the time, and especially down the stretch. So how will Irving handle it, when James is handling the ball and triggering the offense?
"I'll be ready to shoot every single time," Irving said, laughing. "If I'm off the ball, I'm ready to shoot. Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes to win. Obviously he's the greatest player playing the game right now, so if he's on the ball, like I said, I'll be ready to shoot."
In those scenarios, that would be his best way to assist.
Ethan Skolnick covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, @EthanJSkolnick.
