Through the first six years of his NBA career, Kyrie Irving has established himself as one of the best pure scorers in the league.
In light of that, his teammate LeBron James recently voiced some huge praise toward the Cleveland Cavaliers‘ All-Star point guard calling him one of the best one-on-one players in today’s game, per Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor.
“He was born to play one-on-one,” James said of Irving. “That’s what he do. I think what he’s improving more upon is the feel of the game and taking his time and scoring and possessions and things of that nature and growing as a point guard and growing as a leader. But the kid was born to play one-on-one. You have those great one-on-one players in our league history and he’s up there.”
Irving has proven to be the complete offensive player with his ability to create his own shot off the dribble and knack for scoring anywhere on the court. What has also separated him on that end of the floor is his ball-handling ability, which has been argued as being the best in the NBA.
That skill set alone gives Irving the deftness to break down individual defenders to either get to the basket or create space for his jump shot. Combined with his scoring prowess, Irving makes it extremely hard for any defender to keep him quiet offensively for long periods of time.
He put that on full display in the Eastern Conference Finals against the Boston Celtics averaging 25.8 points per game on 62.2 percent shooting from the field and 50 percent from beyond the arc. With a third straight NBA Finals matchup against the Golden State Warriors set to begin in less than a week, Irving’s scoring ability will once again play a huge part in determining the Cavaliers’ fate.