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Brief Look Back at Kyrie Irving: FIBA MVP

By John Woodcock

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Former Duke Blue Devil and current Cleveland Cavalier point guard Kyrie Irving just finished a campaign at the FIBA World Cup in Spain where he was named the MVP of the tournament. How did the captain of Team Cocoa do it? He averaged 12 points, 2 steals, and 4 assists in 24 minutes a game. That last number, 24, should tell you that Team USA was balanced and fluid with its lineups.

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The game that won Irving the belt was the final against Serbia. While Irving had shot about 60% from the three point line for the Cup, he simply had not taken that many before the semi-final against Lithuania where he shot 2/5. That was still forty percent, which is good from out there, but nothing like his shooting against the Serbs. Irving shot 6/6 which drove his point total for that final game to 26 points. He added 4 assists to 2 turnovers.

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    • I have been skeptical about Irving throughout the tournament not because he could not play, but because I thought there were more interesting options out there. There looked like good reasons for picking a John Wall or Damian Lillard over Kyrie. Some of those reasons remained valid, as Irving’s defense impressed no one over the course of the tournament.

    The 6/6 night from the arc shows why Coach Mike Krzyzewski kept Irving around over those other guys. Irving can shoot, and he will probably be doing more of that as he plays with LeBron over the course of next season.

    As for Mason Plumlee, he averaged 1.7 pts in 7 minutes a game. He did pull down four rebounds against Serbia for his best performance of the tournament. In the end, his selection was never going to be one that determined whether the team lived or died. Unless it had come at the expense of DeMarcus Cousins, which it did not.

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