Brooklyn Nets: Kyrie Irving odds and the continuity question

The Brooklyn Nets are ranked among the top contenders to land All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving in free agency this summer, but is it a good move?

Depending on your source for odds on free agency movement, the Brooklyn Nets are favorites to land point guard Kyrie Irving in free agency this summer.

The debate can move from simmer to boil now that the Boston Celtics are done this season, dispatched in four straight games by the Milwaukee Bucks after blowing out the Bucks in Game 1 at Milwaukee.

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Of course, this is all on the assumption — a good one, but still not a done deal at this point — that Irving will decline his $21.33 million option for next season and become an unrestricted free agent, where he could command either four years and $140.61 million as an eight-year veteran.

That figure, from early projections on max deals published by Hoops Rumors‘ Luke Adams last summer, would include salaries of $32.7 million next season, $34.34 million in 2020-21, $35.97 million in 2021-22 and a final year salary of $37.61 million.

Boston can offer substantially more money and an extra year because it currently holds Irving’s Bird rights and can offer 8 percent raises in the final four years as opposed to the 5 percent max raise in the final three years any other team can counter with.

So a max for Irving with the Celtics would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $189.66 million — a hefty difference of $49.05 over any offer another team could make.

That’s a lot of money to leave on the table.

However, the situation with Irving and the Celtics may be more complicated than that. Former NBA player Jalen Rose, one of the hosts of ESPN’s Get Up!, said earlier this week that Irving is done in Boston and that the Celtics will help him pack.

Rose explains in the video link above that Irving’s style of play isn’t a good fit with Brad Stevens’ system in Boston.

As for those odds.

Bleacher Report Betting said earlier this week the Nets are a plus-250 favorite to land Irving this summer, ahead of the New York Knicks (plus-300), the Celtics (plus-350), the Los Angeles Lakers (plus-750) and the LA Clippers (plus-1,000).

However, Bovada posted odds, per Gilles Gallant of OddsShark, on the same topic and have the Knicks as a plus-200 favorite to land Kyrie, with the Nets at plus-300, the Celtics at plus-325, followed by the Lakers (plus-500), Clippers (plus-800), the Dallas Mavericks (plus-1,000) and Toronto Raptors (plus-1,200).

In any event, the odds appear to be good that Irving, a New Jersey native who grew up a Nets fan, winds up playing somewhere within the five boroughs.

The thing about the Kyrie-to-the-Nets buzz is that Brooklyn already has an All-Star point guard getting ready to become a restricted free agent — again, based on the logical assumption the Nets extend a qualifying offer — in D’Angelo Russell.

Put their resumes side-by-side and Irving wins in a landslide — six All-Star selections for Kyrie to one for Russell, while Irving also has been named All-NBA once and was on a team that won an NBA title with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016.

Of course, Irving won a title — made the game-winning shot in Game 7, in fact — and then asked out of Cleveland a little more than a year later so he could lead his own team.

That has not ended well for Irving or the Celtics. Boston made a run to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2018 with Irving sidelined because of a knee injury. With Irving this time around, Boston was dogwalked by Milwaukee after taking the series opener.

It was a series during which Irving averaged 20.4 points and 6.4 assists per game, but also shot 35.6 percent overall and a dismal 21.9 percent (7-for-32) from 3-point range while averaging 3.6 turnovers per game.

Then there’s the question of an Irving fit in a Kenny Atkinson system.

Atkinson extended his starters more in 2018-19 than he had in the past, partly due to the massive number of games lost to injury by Brooklyn this season and partly because Atkinson coached more by feel and situation than by rote on distributing minutes.

With that said, Russell — the Nets’ best player for much of 2018-19 — averaged 30.2 minutes per game, tied with Joe Harris for the team lead.

Irving, in eight NBA seasons, has never averaged less than 30.5 minutes per game and that was in his rookie season of 2011-12.

The raw numbers clearly favor Irving, who averaged 23.8 points, 6.9 assists and 5.0 rebounds on 48.7 percent shooting overall and 40.1 percent on 6.5 deep attempts per game. That contrasts to Russell’s 21.1 points, 7.0 assists and 3.9 boards on 43.4 percent shooting overall and 36.9 percent on 7.8 long-range bombs a night.

But, aside from the shooting percentages, a funny thing happens when you normalize those numbers. Here are Irving and Russell and their per-36 minutes figures for this season:

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/10/2019.

It’s not as wide a gap as one might think, with Russell holding a clear edge in assists, while Irving has as clear an edge in the shooting percentages across the board.

Conventional wisdom states that if your franchise is in a position to land a superstar, it must go all-out to land said superstar.

Conventional wisdom also missed the playoffs in Los Angeles this season. Just sayin’.

Then there’s the question of continuity.

The Nets had a roller-coaster season — an eight-game losing streak immediately followed by a seven-game winning streak for starters — but never stopped enjoying each other.

That was a big part of the success in Brooklyn this season, the fact that the chemistry from roster spots 1-16 (save for Kenneth Faried) was outstanding.

Russell grew up this season in conjunction with the young core that includes 21-year-old center Jarrett Allen and Caris LeVert, the three-year veteran wing who will be 25 in August and will likely be in extension discussions with the Nets this summer.

The Celtics this season appeared to have all the enjoyment of a root canal. Irving sniped at the team’s younger players, never by name of course, but there was not a lot of cohesion within the roster.

The Anthony Davis rumors did little to quell the sense of unease that seemed to surround the Celtics as they went from being anointed as the successors to the LeBron James-less Cavaliers to rule the Eastern Conference to a team that won just 49 games, finished fourth in the East and was unceremoniously jettisoned from the playoffs in a five-game rout.

A rout, it should be pointed out, during which Irving played very poorly, particularly for a guy with championship experience and three NBA Finals appearances under his belt.

Russell took his share of heat for his playoff shortcomings and there’s no way to spin it — he did not play well in the first-round defeat at the hands of the Philadelphia 76ers.

But, here’s the comparison of Russell’s first-round numbers against the 76ers — in career playoff game Nos. 1-5 — and Irving’s second-round performance against the Bucks, in career playoff appearances 57-61.

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/10/2019.

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/10/2019.

Those lines aren’t all that dissimilar and again, one of those players was in the postseason for the very first time and the other was a seasoned playoff veteran.

Some have questioned Russell’s durability, odd considering he played in 81 of 82 regular season games in 2018-19 and the one he missed wasn’t by choice — he was rested by Atkinson on the back end of a back-to-back in late December.

In four NBA seasons, Russell has missed 56 games, broken down this way:

2015-16: 2
2016-17: 19
2017-18: 34
2018-19: 1

In eight NBA seasons, Irving has missed 132 games.

2011-12: 15 (played in 51 of 66 games in lockout-shortened season)
2012-13: 23
2013-14: 11
2014-15: 7
2015-16: 29
2016-17: 10
2017-18: 22
2018-19: 15

That does not include Irving sitting out the final five games of the NBA Finals in 2015 nor does it account for missing Boston’s entire playoff run in 2018.

Russell is younger, demonstratively more durable and was part of the building of the Brooklyn culture which has been do ballyhooed of late.

The Nets do have needs as free agency approaches, but those are in the frontcourt. A Kevin Durant or a Kawhi Leonard would do wonders to help Brooklyn reach the next level.

Swapping a young point guard for an older, more fragile one?

Irving is a better player, but it feels like a lateral move at best.