NBA Draft 2011: Why Kyrie Irving Is Not the Best Player in the Draft

Consensus number one pick in the upcoming 2011 NBA draft is Kyrie Irving. The Cavaliers are in need of a point guard, in fact, they are in need of every position. Since they need help at every position, the Cavaliers could theoretically draft the best overall player in the draft.

But if the Cavaliers do draft Kyrie Irving, are they actually drafting the best overall player in the draft?

First, let’s look at why people consider Kyrie to be the best player in the draft. His college career was marred with injuries.  Besides the bye, playing the 16 seed, in which he didn’t play that much anyway, Kyle only played in two competitive college games.

The second game, Kyrie lost to who many believe is the second best overall player in the 2011 draft, Derrick Williams and his Arizona Wildcats.

So why is Irving considered the best player in the draft despite his lack of real college experience? Because of how good he was in high school.

According to ESPN.com, he was the overall number three recruit coming out of high school. The number one, Harrison Barnes, and number two player Jared Sullinger, are staying in school for their sophomore year.

 How do they determine who was the best player in High School? They base it solely on talent.

But is it talent that makes the great players so great? Was Michael Jordan given the title of best player ever because he was born with the ability to shoot a fade-away jump shot and play stifling defense? No, Michael Jordan worked harder than anyone else and made himself the best player of all-time.

In high school, players do not work nearly as hard as they do once they get into college. Every year John Calipari has to coach a team mainly of freshmen and every year he talks about how he has to get these freshmen to understand how hard you have to work to succeed in this sport.

Kevin Durant has gone on record saying that if he came straight from high school to the NBA, he would have, “played video games instead of working on my basketball game.”

Playing in college teaches these players how to work and get better. It is not simply working hard but knowing how to work hard. The adage “Perfect practice makes perfect” is true, spending hours and hours working in deep practice to get to the 10,000 hour rule.

The 10,000 hour rule, as spelled out in the book Outliers by Malcolm Galdwell, is how many hours of practice it takes to become an expert at anything. Whether it be writing software for computers, playing instruments, or shooting jump shots it takes 10,000 hours of work to become great.

However, simply doing something mindlessly for 10,000 hours does not necessarily make you an expert—it is practicing with a purpose to get better and working and stopping every time you fail until you get something right.

Ray Allen is obsessive compulsive about shooting. If he gets it in his head that he needs to shoot more, even if he thinks he has shot enough, thirty minutes later he will be in the gym shooting until he is satisfied that every detail of his shot is perfect.  

Has Kyrie Irving had time to learn and implement this life style on the basketball court? How could he have if he has been injured and on the sideline.

So who should be the considered the best player in the draft?

Derrick Williams. He was a three star player who wasn’t even ranked on Rival.com top 150 players coming out of high school in 2009. He was considered the worst player in a five player recruiting class by Arizona.

So what happened?

He worked harder than everybody else to get better. Not given a chance based on the talent shown in high school, Derrick Williams refused to be mediocre.

Because it is very apparent that he has worked very hard prior to making the NBA, he will continue to work hard in a Michael Jordan kind of way. Kyrie Irving has not had to work hard to make it to where he is today.

If I were the Cavaliers, I would take Derrick Williams over Kyrie Irving every time for the one reason that Derrick is a proven hard worker and hard work is more important than anything else when it comes to being a great player.