Down Goes Uncle Drew
The big news that hit on Friday was that Kyrie Irving will be sidelined for the next 3-4 months with a fractured left knee cap. Ouch.
This is obviously horrible news for the people of Cleveland who were so desperately hoping to finally have a championship trophy land in the state of Ohio after 51 years of suffering, it’s horrible news for the Cavs and LeBron James as they lost yet another marquee player, and it’s horrible news for Irving who is now looking at a lengthy and arduous recovery process.
Let's start with Kyrie
If you are a glass-half-full kind of person, the positive in this situation would be that Irving avoided one of the more serious knee injuries in that the reports thus far are saying his ACL and MCL are fine. An ACL/MCL tear can ruin a career, while fractured kneecaps (though no walk in the park) are much more likely to resolve with a happy ending.
Let's take a look at some of kneecap fractures over the years, and their results.
March 4, 2005: 24-year-old Jarvis Hayes is put on the injury list with a fractured right knee. His initial timetable is set at 4-6 weeks, and he decides to try and let the injury heal naturally without surgery. The knee is slow to heal and he misses the rest of the season. The next year, Hayes experiences some soreness in his right knee during a preseason game, and ends up sitting out the final six games of the preseason. However, he’s able to play in the regular-season opener, and eventually overtakes Antonio Daniels for the starting shooting guard position in Washington. On December 16, 2005, nine months removed from his initial right knee fracture, Jarvis exits a game vs. the Lakers with what is deemed a bruised right knee. The injury is later revealed to be a fractured right knee and he misses the remainder of the season, only making it through 21 games.
After two injury plagued seasons, Jarvis makes it through 81 games during the 2006-07 season, a full 82-game season in 2008, and a 74-game season in 2009. His numbers do dip, but you could argue that’s because he was never much more than a role player in the NBA, and therefore his minutes went down with each season of basketball. I’d consider this one a semi-success.
October 27, 2009: 20-year-old Blake Griffin is diagnosed with a stress fracture in his left kneecap, and his initial timetable is set at 6-weeks. Griffin elects to forgo surgery and let the injury heal naturally, things do not go as planned, and after multiple setbacks he eventually goes under the knife, missing his entire rookie campaign. However, we all know how this one turns out. Griffin makes it through a full 82-game slate during the 2010-11 season, he misses just four games over the next three years, and the knee is never an issue again. He dunks over cars, he becomes an All-Star, and he racks up triple-doubles in the playoffs. Success.
December 5, 2009: 22-year-old Greg Oden fractures his left kneecap and misses the entire season. It should be noted that this is Oden… Greg Oden, and he had some knee issues before the fractured kneecap, but this particular kneecap fracture essentially ends his career. He does make it back to the basketball court during the 2013-14 season (four years later), where he watches helplessly from Miami’s bench as the Spurs annihilate the Heat in the Finals. #Fail
December 19, 2013: 35-year-old Kobe Bryant is diagnosed with a fractured left knee, and his initial timetable is set at 6-weeks. He ends up missing the entire season. He returns healthy and ready to go for the 2014-15 season, but a torn rotator cuff again cuts his season short, although the knee is fine.
As you can see, there are some varied outcomes with this injury, ranging from the Greg Odens to the Blake Griffins, one a very sad and downward spiral, one an absolute success story. It needs to be noted that Oden and Griffin didn’t suffer exactly the same injury, as Griffin was simply dealing with a hairline fracture while Oden had a full on dislocation in addition to the fracture, but these are for better are for worse the varied possibilities in dealing with this injury. One thing that jumps out immediately is that the timetables are generally set on an unrealistic timeline. Despite Blake merely dealing with a hairline fracture, he missed the entire season. The Lakers continuously pushed back Kobe’s return date until eventually deciding he needed the year off. Jarvis basically took two years to recover, and Oden… well, Oden is almost too sad to even get into. Knee injuries are a big deal in the NBA, so a fractured kneecap is nothing to shrug at. I’m hoping that Kyrie makes a full recovery, but given his checkered past with various injuries, I’m not going to be drafting him next year.
Now for the fallout in Cleveland
David Blatt is going to have to get creative (something the Cavs’ offense certainly was not during Game 1) with Kyrie going down, and Matthew Dellavedova is going to have to step up in a massive way if the Cavs hope to avoid a series sweep. Fortunately (unfortunately?) we can get a pretty good idea of what the rotations will look like for the rest of the series based on the two games Kyrie missed during the Eastern Conference finals. Cleveland doesn’t really have any legitimate depth on the wings, so it’s pretty much going to be the usual suspects playing very heavy minutes until the game turns into a blowout.
Obviously LeBron James is going to be the primary beneficiary with Irving sidelined. In the two games during the playoffs with both Irving and Kevin Love (shoulder) out, LeBron posted a gaudy usage rate of 40.8 while compiling averages of 33.5 points, 12.0 assists, 13.5 rebounds, 1.5 steals, 1.5 three-pointers, 5.0 turnovers and 0.5 blocks per game on 40.7 percent shooting over 42.9 minutes of action. LeBron’s percentages are going to suffer and his turnovers will rise as he’ll be responsible for a ridiculous amount of Cleveland’s offense, but I fully expect at least one historically unfathomable outing from The King as he looks to keep Cleveland’s championship aspirations alive.
Matthew Dellavedova is going to slide into the starting lineup, and he’ll need to play his token gritty defense against Stephen Curry, while knocking down the open looks LeBron provides him with. In the two games Delly started for the Cavs this postseason, he compiled averages of 14.0 points, 4.5 rebounds, 3.0 assists, 3.0 three-pointers and 0.5 steals on 32.1 percent shooting through 41.1 minutes.
Iman Shumpert is going to have to improve upon his 2-of-6 shooting performance from Thursday’s Game 1 loss. But he was very good the two games Irving was sidelined during the Atlanta series, averaging 15.5 points, 5.5 rebounds and 4.0 three-pointers per game on 50.0 percent shooting from the field over 38.6 minutes of action.
And then there’s J.R. Smith, the guy who apparently prefers jacking up highly contested 3-point shots because, well, it makes things more interesting. Smith is going to need to be smarter with his shot selection during Game 2, but knowing Smith, that may be a tall order. So, I guess Smith will just need to knock down those ridiculously contested shots he takes. In the two games Irving was out, Smith averaged 13.0 points, 6.0 rebounds, 1.0 steal and 2.0 three-pointers on 40.9 percent shooting through 35.0 minutes. Smith is as streaky as they come, but if he can get hot, he can be a difference maker for the Cavs.
James Jones has been the only other wing player to get significant minutes since the Eastern Conference finals, and he has put in averages of 4.6 points and 1.2 three-pointers on 31.6 percent shooting through 19.3 minutes of action. Those numbers aren’t great, and this kind of epitomizes the lack of depth in Cleveland.
Perhaps Blatt decides to go back to Mike Miller who was getting around 13 minutes of action during the first two games of the Chicago series, but considering Miller only managed to compile nine rebounds and three points during that two game span, it would seem unlikely. Shawn Marion would be the other candidate to step into action, but no longer a guy capable of bringing meaningful statistics to the stat sheet, even when given considerable minutes.
The DNPs:
Kendrick Perkins, Brendan Haywood, and Joe Harris will not be a factor this series.
Larry O’Brien in Oakland?
Golden State was already favored before the Irving injury, and now with Kyrie down, it’s looking like the Dubs will be bringing Larry O’Brien back to Oakland for the first time in 40 years. Despite LeBron being LeBron, there’s just absolutely no way that Cleveland can compete with Oakland’s depth. I’m thinking LeBron does something magical during Game 3, but ultimately, I can’t imagine this series going past Game 5.
Dubs in 5.
