The 2024 NBA Finals will feature a not-at-all-awaited reunion between Dallas Mavericks star Kyrie Irving and one of his former teams, the Boston Celtics. Suffice it to say, there’s no love lost between the two parties and it’s likely to show over the next few weeks.
Kyrie joined the Celtics after losing in the NBA Finals with LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers the season before. Seeking to carve his own path, the former No. 1 overall pick got his trade wish in a blockbuster deal and initially the marriage seemed to be a happy one.
But after his first year in Boston, things started to go a little bit sour for Kyrie. During the 2018-19 season, he walked back prior comments on wanting to stay in Boston, declaring that he’s going to put what’s best for his career over anything else.
Walking back his commitment to re-sign
“At the end of the day, I’m going to do what’s best for my career,” Irving said in February 2019, via NBC Sports Boston. “I spent the last eight years trying to do what everyone else wanted me to do — managers, other personnel — and I don’t owe anybody (expletive).”
Speculation would further rise after a lengthy conversation he had with Kevin Durant during the 2019 NBA All-Star break. Afterwards, he tried to dismiss rumors that he and Durant were working towards forming a superteam elsewhere.
Kevin Durant rumors
“I don’t have a private life when I’m out there in the NBA,” Irving said, via The Boston Globe. “Somebody wants to take a video, it is what it is. Pour water on [the speculation]? I’m a human being talking to another best friend of mine. It’s just crazy.
“This is the stuff that just doesn’t make the league fun. Nobody helps promote the league by doing [expletive] like that. Just fictitious, putting things on like what we’re talking about, it’s crazy. I guess that’s what you want, huh?”
After that season, Kyrie became a free agent and signed with the Brooklyn Nets – joining forces with Durant and forming the superteam that he explicitly said he wasn’t doing.
One of the first things he addressed was why things fell apart with the Celtics. He admitted that he was struggling to balance his home life in New Jersey with his basketball career and felt that he failed everyone in Boston by not giving it his all.
“Failure” in Boston
“I talked to Danny [Ainge] and I wanted to re-sign. So throughout the year, it started becoming more and more clear that my relationship within my home life had a way higher precedence than the organization or anyone,” Irving said, via Sporting News.
“A lot of the battles I thought I could battle through in the [Boston] team environment, I just wasn’t ready for… And I failed those guys, in the sense that I didn’t give them everything I could have during that season… In terms of me being a leader in that environment and bringing everyone together, I failed.”
Heading into the NBA Finals, Kyrie has said just about all of the right things. But that may not save him from the ire of fans at TD Garden who still hate him for leaving them.