Trade & FA 2023-24: Stein-Ingram Trade Inevitable| LAL Want Lebron Back On Any Terms

[mvossman]

In my opinion, "fit" trumps "talent".  I'd much rather have 55 games of Kyrie than 75 of Murray, even if we somehow decided that they had equal talent.

Kyrie is a great fit, both on the court and off.  He's been hurt, so less available, perhaps, but any player can get hurt.  Lots of Mavs have missed lots of games this season.  And I'd argue that a lot of his recent unavailability (Brooklyn) didn't have anything to do with being hurt, so can't really be used to project forward.

KP was hurt a lot, also, but when healthy, he just wasn't a great fit.

I'm not sure Kyrie is a better fit than Murray.  He is a better fit on offense, but Murray is capable of much better defense.  If Murray feels he needs to run point, then it obviously is not going to work.  His usage is currently only a few percentage points below what it was in SA, and Kyrie currently has a higher usage than Murray did in SA so I am not convinced it wont work.  As I said above, it probably doesn't matter anyways.  I think they plan on holding onto Kyrie long term, and we just have to hope that his next contract is not an albatross.