Kyrie Irving is a really good player. He’s still just 22 and, though his productivity has plateaued since a rookie year that stands among the best ever, he has plenty of potential to grow into a legitimately great one. He offers a combination of playmaking and outside shooting that exceeds any teammates LeBron James has had in his career to this point. This, in itself, is a big deal. At some point in the next half-decade, James’ game will need to adapt as the strain of being all things at all times will necessarily begin to take a toll on his body. If he can save miles on his legs by building his offensive approach increasingly around his low-post game, his strength and passing from the block will pair better with Kyrie’s long-range lethality and twirling incisiveness than it would with Wade’s power and savvy.

As a long-term bet, LeBron’s collaboration with Kyrie and Love makes a whole lot of sense for all involved. And the caveats to the odds that the union will reap immediate dividends should — repeat, should — be clear enough. But a funny thing happens when you bring LeBron James on board. Attention, visibility, and expectations ratchet up, often to unreasonable levels. And while everything discussed above that separates Kyrie from the heights Dwyane Wade once reached can seem obvious enough when viewed in isolation, moments will arise this year when websites and newspapers and networks with minutes or column inches to fill will start to postulate about why the shiny new Cavaliers aren’t doing what the Heat used to do. Because just like America loves a comeback story — and LeBron’s reversion from mercenary to hometown hero most certainly qualifies as that — it also likes a nice, clean narrative explaining why one doesn’t go to plan.

If and when the Cavs stumble, as any newly-compiled team at times must, detractors will look to the New Three. And they’ll see the greatest small forward ever, doing what he does. They’ll see a power forward whose capacity to put crooked numbers in the box score has very few peers. And they’ll see a talented but flawed young point guard who, for all his shooting and his passing and his national-team heroics, will simply not be prime Dwyane Wade.

Some will surely convict him on those grounds, and it won’t be fair. But how Kyrie Irving reacts to the perceptions created by his detractors may just define the high-risk, high-reward phase that his career is about to enter.