I have sincere doubts that Kyrie Irving is a top player. He makes spectacular plays, but I don’t see him make easy plays. The easy plays. I would never say Kyrie Irving makes the game look easy- unlike LeBron or KD.
The stats Mr. O’Connor used were few and sporadic at best- and in the endless stat community that is the NBA it is not hard to pick and choose stats that support your argument. Over the last few years, when Lebron does not play, the Cavs and Kyrie are something like 4–18. When Kyrie played on the cavs before Lebron, while he was young, it was not like he showed franchise player tendencies. Going way back to the NBA draft of 2011 and high school, Kyrie Irving was always seen as a great player, but he was never seen as a potential franchise saver- unlike guys like LBJ, KD, John Wall, Anthony Davis, Towns, or Fultz.
Without Lebron James, he has not done much. Kyrie Irving scores points. I have never seen any evidence that he makes his teammates better. The stats cited are very advanced- and almost all of them relate to his own scoring. He plays atrocious defense. Channing Frye once said “basketball was always so hard before I got to play with Lebron James.”