Kyrie Irving says Kobe Bryant told him to do some ‘crazy’ things during championship season with Cavs

Kyrie Irving won the only title of his NBA career so far back in the year 2016 when he was a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Irving had a huge hand in the championship and buried a clutch shot in the deciding Game 7 of the NBA Finals, but it took a full team effort for Cleveland to capture its first title in franchise history.

The 2015-16 campaign also just so happened to be Kobe Bryant’s final season in the league before he retired. Bryant played 20 seasons in the NBA, and he spent every one of them as a member of the iconic Los Angeles Lakers organization.

Irving recently shared that Bryant told him to do some things that were “crazy” during the 2015-16 season, a campaign that was especially meaningful for both Irving and Bryant.

“I remember during the season, when we won the championship, he told me to do a few things that were crazy, bro,” Irving said. “Just like, yo, just — I wish I could tell y’all the full story. I’ll tell y’all off stream, but — ’cause some of the things are not meant for kids, you know what I mean?

“Some of it’s like real adult, mature stuff that you gotta understand that’s — when somebody tells you to do somethin’ for the greater good of the team, it’s not always gonna sound like the best thing. And you gotta be able to know how to take that advice and apply it.

“But for him, yeah, 2016, he told me to really start isolatin’ myself a little bit more to get a greater sense of who I am and how you have to approach every day.”

Irving had numerous heroic performances for the Cavaliers in the 2016 NBA Playoffs, but some fans maybe didn’t foresee him playing so well in the playoffs after how his 2015-16 regular season started.

He missed the start of the season while recovering from an injury and didn’t exactly look his best self upon returning. Fortunately, he was able to find his footing and look more like himself as the campaign rolled on, but some of his overall numbers suffered as a result of everything.

Across 53 regular-season appearances, he averaged 19.6 points per game (the second-lowest scoring average of his NBA career) and also converted a career-low 32.1 percent of his shots from deep.

For comparison, across 21 appearances in the 2016 NBA Playoffs, he saw his scoring average rise to 25.2 points per contest while he shot 44.0 percent from 3-point range.

Irving also saved some of his best playoff games for the most important series of the postseason: the NBA Finals. If it weren’t for his spectacular shotmaking — particularly in the latter stages of the championship series — perhaps the Cavaliers wouldn’t have become the first team in the league to ever overcome a 3-1 NBA Finals deficit.

He didn’t win the Finals MVP award for the Cavaliers, as that hardware went to LeBron James, but Irving averaged the second-most points per game of any player on Cleveland during the NBA Finals and nearly led the team.

Even though Irving didn’t last with the Cavaliers for much longer after the team won the 2016 title, he should be fondly remembered by fans of the squad for his level of play during its championship run.