Dallas Mavericks star Kyrie Irving has been active on the streaming site, Twitch over the course of the offseason. Here, he is often seen interacting with his fans in many ways, including the rationale behind some of his most famous plays. Following a similar trend, Irving explained just how much work went behind his renowned move on Stephen Curry, while he was on the Boston Celtics in 2018. Despite many thinking, it was nothing more than his improvisational abilities, ‘Kai’ explained that it was a move he shockingly practiced every day.
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Kyrie is well known for his ball handling and moves. Shaquille O’Neal, the NBA great and Lakers legend once pondered over who the greatest ball-handler of all time is. Posting about it on Instagram, Shaq was forced to choose between Pete Maravich, Irving, Curry, and Allen Iverson, with a host of other athletes.
Shaq ponders over the greatest handles of all time pic.twitter.com/KEYmwMWiEZ
— tragicpatek (@tragicpatek) July 21, 2023
On Instagram, while he did acknowledge that Kyrie was inarguably among the best ever, he admitted he just couldn’t make a pick from the bunch.
Kyrie Irving breaks down his famous move on Stephen Curry
Stephen Curry may not be a ‘lockdown defender’ still, he has never been atrocious on the end either. He always seemed to try his hardest for the team, even if it meant he’d be left embarrassed. And on one occasion, he absolutely was. Watch the move in question, in the YouTube clip by Luis Franz.
As mentioned previously, most onlookers wondered if the play was birthed from a moment of improvisational brilliance from Kyrie Irving. However, as seen in the YouTube clip by Bleacher Report, ‘Uncle Drew’ reveals he practices that same move every single day. Here is what he said.
“That baseline move that I hit on (Stephen Curry) in Golden State, I dropped it? I still remember the move, I practice that move plenty of times. head fake, jab, drop, drop it again, and shake, like without touching the ball. So, you drop it in front of you, then you spin it. So you catch it with your left hand. I spun it, I dropped it, and I caught it with my left hand.”
Admittedly, for most NBA players, the spin move would be nothing more than a moment of brilliance spurred on by pure instinct, or something of the like. However, given the mastery of Kyrie Irving, it’s hard not to believe he practices even the most outlandish moves on a daily basis. It is likely one of the biggest reasons he is in contention for being the best ball-handler in NBA history.
Iman Shumpert reveals the secret behind Kyrie Irving’s layup package
Iman Shumpert and Kyrie Irving were teammates on the Cleveland Cavaliers and even won a championship together. During this time, Irving revealed the story behind his incredible layup package to Shumpert. During a podcast appearance very recently, Iman narrated the very same story. Here is what he said.
“What y’all don’t get to see is…him explain to you that he grew up playing on a rim that was missing pieces on the backboard. So, that’s how he learned those weird angles to twist the ball off, because his backboard was missing pieces. So, picture going up to the rim this way…and…you have no backboard to finish, now that somebody is on your arm! So he learned how to look forward..spin it…to where it could hit the left side and go into the right. Because he don’t have a backboard to put it on the other side. I’m like ‘Dawg! That’s insane!’”
