Links to the Present: Kyrie and Marketing Edition

Yesterday, Kyrie Irving reached a new milestone in his basketball career, MVP of the FIBA World Cup. He had 26 points on 10-13 shots and 6-6 threes to lead all scorers during the 37 point Team USA defeat of Serbia. Irving is coming back to the Cavs a more experienced player and should be ready to play alongside LeBron James this season.  Irving has the right attitude to play with All-Star level guys.

“With USA Basketball, you’re part of something bigger than yourself,” Irving said. “I put myself in there. Whatever coach needed, whatever all my teammates needed, I was willing to do every single day. I think we all shared that, the heart and passion.

Kyrie reached his MVP form with some help from Mike Krzyzewski, and he seems thankful for it.

“Coach called me about three times [before camp] and kept asking me if I was in shape,” Irving said. “So there was a little bit of pressure there. But coming in, being ready and throwing myself in there, whatever happens happens and living with the results.”

The young guard’s skills haven’t gone unnoticed by his fellow Team USA players.  Stephen Curry had this to say about his play against Serbia:

“He made so many plays and kept the pressure on their guards to defend him,” Stephen Curry said of Irving. “He gave us what we needed, him and James [Harden] in the first half, to open up the game.”

Irving has also been giving compliments to his teammates.

“Playing with this team,” Irving said, “you have so many pieces to go to. It’s easy for me to take a back seat when Stephen Curry’s hot or James Harden is hot or AD is in the post and he’s killing another big man. It’s easy for me to do that.”

Irving’s ability to determine when to let someone else take over this tournament was nearly perfect, and it will go a long way towards making the Cavs offense mesh quickly this season. Taking a back seat to other players on the Cavs will be weird for Irving, since he has been the lead man for Cleveland his entire career. Irving isn’t the only Cav that is going to adjust to a new role though.  If you believe Terry Pluto, Tristan Thompson will be playing much differently this year.

Anderson Varejao is expected to start at center. Thompson also could play a lot of center. That’s because Shawn Marion is expected to be the first forward to come off the bench — and he can play both forward spots.  

Thompson shot only 58 percent in shots within three feet of the rim. He also had a lot of shots blocked. The Cavs want him to concentrate more on scoring off missed shots and on the fast break rather than trying to score in the low post.

Hopefully, this is true, and fans won’t have to witness demoralizing plays like the one shown in the above picture as much. Plutto also mentions that LeBron James, Kevin Love, and Dion Waiters have lost weight and have been hitting the gym while some of their teammates have been playing abroad.

Kevin Love impressed Cavs trainers by losing about 15 pounds and being leaner. He was listed at 6-foot-10, 260 pounds last season. He wants to improve his quickness.

The Cavs are Ohio’s lone NBA team, and they are making even more efforts to capitalize on that according to an article by Crain’s Cleveland Business.  The team has unveiled new commercials to promote the team in Columbus and Cincinnati, two markets that aren’t exactly the biggest NBA fans.  The Cavs have had a 505% percent increase in visitors to their website during the month of August.  Furthermore, LeBron has made himself into an even bigger commodity this time around in Cleveland.

Cavs vice president of communications Tad Carper, who has been with the franchise for almost 15 years, said “there’s really no comparison” between the interest level in the current star-studded edition of the Cavs and the group formerly led by James from 2003-10. 

The Cavs are changing how the state of Ohio looks at sports and are set to put Cleveland on everybody’s mind.