ESPN NBA rank: 5 Players they ranked too low

#4 Kyrie Irving

Golden State Warriors v Boston Celtics

Okay, this one was probably the most baffling of all their predictions/rankings, whatever ESPN wishes to characterize their list as. The basis they cited for Kyrie's #20 ranking overall was that he only averages 63 games played over 7 years of his career.

For one thing, if you're arguing that, you are basically eliminating Steph or Joel Embiid from any kind of contention at the #2 or the #9 spots on your list. Both players appeared in fewer games than Kyrie did last season, and have an injury history that makes them much more susceptible to repeated absences from action.

For another, Kyrie has only really had 2 major injury absences in his whole career, and the Cavs eased him into action whenever he got injured in his first 3 seasons as they needed to tank in order to assemble more lottery talent around him.

Now, in no way, form or manner is he an inferior talent to Damian Lillard, and he's arguably a better defender than either him or Steph - as he demonstrated through last season. He is liable to get killed by screens like the duo, but his instincts, reach and agility are superior to the other two players.

I'm not suggesting Steph to drop out of the top 10. But I do firmly believe that Irving is a more valuable player than Lillard (as proved by the percentages), and if one of these two has to be placed above CP3 (another injury-prone player who was still ranked quite high), it should be the Celtic and not the TrailBlazer.

Kyrie is the single most unguardable point guard in the league - period. Averages of 27.4 ppg and 29.4 ppg in Finals series against Golden State should be ample proof of this.