Kyrie is point man

Nets not moving him off ball

There is still no definitive timetable for Kyrie Irving’s return from injury, but one thing is clear: When the All-Star guard returns to the floor, the Nets won’t be moving him off the ball.

“That hasn’t been a conversation,” Spencer Dinwiddie said after shootaround on Thursday.

Dinwiddie’s play in Irving’s absence has made that idea a talking point. He’s won an Eastern Conference Player of the Week award (and arguably should have won a second) and is averaging about 23 points and six assists per game this season.

Since Irving left the rotation with a shoulder injury, Dinwiddie is averaging more than 26 points — good for 10th best in the league — and 7 assists. He set a new career-high with 41 points in a loss in San Antonio.

Dinwiddie has played so well, former NBA champion Paul Pierce has suggested the Nets move Irving to the two when he returns from his shoulder injury: “Spencer Dinwiddie should be the guy who manages the game,” Pierce said. “Kyrie is a better scorer, so put him at the two guard. I think it’d go better that way than with Kyrie being the primary ballhandler.”

Dinwiddie said he understands the hierarchy of talent on this Nets team that also features another injured star in Caris LeVert.

“I think it’s kind of like, Kyrie and Caris [are up here], Spencer [down here],” he gestured. “Like that’s the way it works. You just roll with whatever happens. You don’t get disappointed if you don’t have those expectations.”

Pierce’s take — one shared by many fans on social media — is an understandable one.

The Nets are averaging 277 passes per game in the 18 they’ve played without both Irving and LeVert, according to data provided by Second Spectrum. With a healthy lineup, they averaged just 246 per game, good for thirdfewest in the NBA.

The Nets went 4-7 to start the season. They are 12-7 since — after Thursday’s 94-82 loss to the Knicks — and a big part of their success is ball movement, with upticks in both assists and secondary assists without their two primary ballhandlers in the rotation.

Most importantly, the Nets have been a light-years better defensive team since their two stars went down. They have the eighth-best defensive rating in the NBA since Nov. 15.

Prior to that, Brooklyn’s defense ranked sixth-worst.

While the ball movement has improved without them, the Irving/LeVert offense was getting the job done. Through eight games, Brooklyn had the highest-scoring offense in the NBA, averaging 120 points per game. They were shooting the three at a 40.5% clip that ranked atop the entire league. Leading into the blowout in Phoenix — LeVert’s last game before injuring his thumb — Irving was averaging 30 points, 7 assists, 5.6 rebounds and a steal per game.

Moving Irving off the ball doesn’t make sense for one reason: He’s one of the best in the league, maybe ever, with the ball in his hands. His bag of tricks knows no limits. He’s a basketball assassin who can kill you with one dirty crossover after another.

The flip side of that coin, of course, is a ball that sticks in Irving’s hands while his teammates get caught watching.

“Sometimes your job is to spectate,” head coach Kenny Atkinson said in early November. “When he has the mismatch in front of him, and Joe Harris’ guys are kind of locked up, that’s not bad for us.”

Moving Irving off the ball doesn’t make financial sense, either. The Nets just gave him a four-year, $140 million contract to be the star this season and the co-star when Kevin Durant returns. The star should be the one with the ball in his hands.

While Irving has been out, Dinwiddie has been just that. The All-Star hopeful says he entered the season trying to “figure out how to be a third auxiliary type guy behind Kyrie and Caris.”

“Now they both get hurt and [the coaches are] like, ‘You know, we need you to be the No. 1 now, and we’ll figure it out when everybody comes back,’” he said. “Obviously Kyrie will be the one and we’ll try to figure out everything after that.”

Here’s the only reality of the situation: It doesn’t matter what position anyone plays as long as the Nets continue to win games.