Mr. Big Shot

The impossible dribble combinations. The clutch shots. The sneakers. The hardware. KYRIE IRVING is the hottest player in the NBA right now. The craziest part? The 24-year-old Cavs PG is only just beginning to find himself.

- Max Resetar

The Cleveland Cavaliers have just wrapped up practice on a bitterly cold Wednesday morning in January in Independence, OH. The snow flurries and biting winds have gotten the best of LeBron James and Kevin Love, both of whom are excused from practice due to flu-like symptoms.

The rest of the Cavs are scattered around the Cleveland Clinic Courts practice facility. Things here are loose and free these days. Tristan Thompson drills free throw after free throw while assistant coach James Posey playfully talks junk beside him. Ty Lue and a few members of the coaching staff chat with GM David Griffin in between the two adjacent practice courts. Richard Jefferson and Channing Frye exchange three-pointers with each other and James Jones pours in make after make on a side rim.

On the far court, Jordan McRae is yelling at RJ and Frye about something—probably teasing them for being old. McRae’s working on his floaters with assistant coach Phil Handy. Kyrie Irving is there, too. For five minutes, they go through quick dribble combinations that lead into floaters with either hand.

Then Irving leaves the court, ducking through a backdoor. He reappears shortly with three boxes of the Nike Kyrie 3. He gives one to Handy who, on the low, has been rocking the best Kyrie colorways for the last three years. As a Cavs official leads Irving across both courts, the 24-year-old saunters behind, a man with the utmost confidence in himself and all that he’s already accomplished.

THE FIRST SIGNS of an evolved Kyrie Irving popped up in the first round of the 2016 playoffs. He averaged 27 per in the Cavs’ four-game sweep of the Pistons, which isn’t earth-shattering. But he was different. There was a you-ain’t-stopping-me vibe bouncing off him that seemed to radiate more and more with each passing bucket.