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"FacebookPinterest\n\n Kyrie Irving not only averaged 18 points a game as a rookie, but he gave one of the most struggling sports franchises in the country hope that one day they&amp;#39;ll witness something great again. The newly crowned Rookie of the Year swung by the GQ office to tell us his playoff predictions, what it&amp;#39;s like to play after LeBron and\u2014ya know, what most 20-year-old professional athletes want to talk about\u2014his favorite musicals.\n\n\u00B7\u00B7\u00B7\n\nGQ: Congrats on the Rookie of the Year award. What do you think about the other three votes?\n\n Kyrie Irving: It is what is it. I&amp;#39;m just glad I got 117 of them.\n\nGQ: Haters! When did you know when you were playing basketball that you could be at the top?\n\n Kyrie Irving: Deep down I felt it. No other rookie had a game plan against them. Everybody we played against knew that if they stopped me or kept me from doing the things that I normally do, they were going to have a better chance of winning; all the other rookies, I felt like, they were just able to be rookies. I came and I felt like I had the most pressure in the world because we had to win games. I felt a world of pressure.\n\nGQ: Do you think it has anything to do with the fact\u2014no disrespect\u2014you were playing for one of the worst teams in the league?\n\n Kyrie Irving: Oh, absolutely. It probably had the most to do with it. And it&amp;#39;s inevitable. I came in when LeBron left and the fans were trying to get back up.\n\nGQ: Do you ever think about leaving? LeBron-ing it?\n\n Kyrie Irving: [Laughs] Nah, its never crossed my mind. I&amp;#39;m just trying to get things going again for Cleveland.\n\nGQ: You were clearly the leader of the team, but it was also your first season in the NBA. What do you do when you&amp;#39;re losing that many games?\n\n Kyrie Irving: I kept an even keel. Every day in practice, I tried to be the same and just make sure my teammates were doing okay. I&amp;#39;m going to be okay, I&amp;#39;m just made sure everybody had the same mindset. We&amp;#39;re going to lose some games, but at one point we had five people from the D-League almost starting, which is unheard of. So you just have be optimistic.\n\nGQ: I can&amp;#39;t imagine you&amp;#39;ve ever lost nine games in a row before you became a Cavalier.\n\n Kyrie Irving: No.\n\nGQ: Have you ever lost three games in a row?\n\n Kyrie Irving: No.\n\nGQ: Did you feel any LeBron hangover?\n\n Kyrie Irving: Yeah, I mean they have to treat us differently. I think there will always be LeBron hanging over, but I know that the Cleveland fans just want us to be really good again, and even when we were on a nine-game losing streak, the fans were still out there supporting us.\n\nGQ: During the season, Lin was all the rage, Ricky Rubio was all the rage. Were you fueled by the fact that you weren&amp;#39;t getting as much national attention and now you&amp;#39;re Rookie of the Year?\n\n Kyrie Irving: Yeah, a little bit. But what are you going to do about it? I played on national TV once, and that was during the All-Star [Rising Stars Challenge], when I won MVP. That was my only national TV exposure, and still having people know my name, it feels good.\n\nGQ: Who was your toughest matchup this year?\n\n Kyrie Irving: Steve Nash.\n\nGQ: Really?\n\n Kyrie Irving: Everybody says, &amp;quot;He&amp;#39;s old,&amp;quot; but you don&amp;#39;t play against somebody that has 90 screen-and-rolls just for him. Just imagine going through 90 screen-and-rolls and they&amp;#39;re just for Steve Nash. He had 16 assists against us. That&amp;#39;s ridiculous. It&amp;#39;s tiring and I hated it.\n\nGQ: Who were the other tough guys to play against?\n\n Kyrie Irving: Everybody. Everybody in the NBA is good. And then you have the really good ones and the great ones. The great ones I find myself watching, which is bad. When we were in L.A. playing the Lakers, I was watching Kobe go to work on my teammates. And then playing KD, against LeBron...the same thing. But at the same time, when I was playing out there, I felt like I belonged out there. That was the defining moment for me. When I really felt like I belonged.\n\nGQ: Other than the championship, what are some of your biggest goals?\n\n Kyrie Irving: I&amp;#39;ll go one step below, I want to make the playoffs. Also, be a part of a special team where I can say, &amp;quot;Wow, I played with that guy, and that guy.&amp;quot;\n\nGQ: What about non-basketball goals?\n\n Kyrie Irving: I want to be on the cover of GQ, that&amp;#39;s a personal goal. I want to be interviewed by GQ on camera and I want to do a freestyle for GQ like Drake.\n\nGQ: You&amp;#39;re almost done then, man!\n\n Kyrie Irving: And just make sure my family is okay. For me it&amp;#39;s not just about me, it&amp;#39;s about setting up my little sitter, my little Irvings that I have in the future and just make sure my family is okay, because my dad worked really hard. He still works, he is a bonds evaluator at Reuters. He works hard for me and my sister, so I&amp;#39;m going to make sure he&amp;#39;s set and everybody after that.\n\nGQ: A lot of NBA players look out for their families. And a lot them claim that&amp;#39;s why they&amp;#39;re broke after having millions. What are you going to do that&amp;#39;s different?\n\n Kyrie Irving: Multiple Bentleys isn&amp;#39;t making anyone &amp;quot;financially set.&amp;quot; I learned how to say &amp;quot;No.&amp;quot; That can go a long way.\n\nGQ: How much free time do you get on the road?\n\n Kyrie Irving: There&amp;#39;s a lot of idle time. most of the time I&amp;#39;m just watching movies and I take melatonin and then I fall asleep for 12 hours.\n\nGQ: What&amp;#39;s a good movie that GQ readers should check out based on Kyrie&amp;#39;s recommendation?\n\n Kyrie Irving: Safehouse, Chronicle, Oz, Dreamgirls, Rent...\n\nGQ: Rent?\n\n Kyrie Irving: Yeah, Dreamgirls and Rent. I probably know all the words to the songs of Rent. Honestly.\n\nGQ: Didn&amp;#39;t take you for much of a musicals kind of guy.\n\n Kyrie Irving:  Yep. Rent, Wicked, Lion King...\n\nGQ: Lets get back to basketball. Any playoff predictions?\n\n Kyrie Irving: OKC for the west, Miami for the east.\n\nGQ: Who do you have winning?\n\n Kyrie Irving: Miami.\n\nGQ: Will Kobe ever win another championship?\n\n Kyrie Irving: Yes.\n\nGQ: How many will LeBron win before he retires?\n\n Kyrie Irving: Three.\n\nGQ: Why?\n\n Kyrie Irving: Because he can only win three. He can&amp;#39;t win 5,6,7,8...\n\nGQ: How many are you going to win?\n\n Kyrie Irving: Two.\n\nGQ: Why?\n\n Kyrie Irving: Because I&amp;#39;m Kyrie."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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