Byerie Irving? Do you want Kyrie back?

What are your thoughts on Kyrie?

  • I want him back on max deal no matter what

    Votes: 60 19.5%
  • I want him back on max deal ONLY if AD is also coming

    Votes: 85 27.6%
  • I’m done with him and don’t want him back under any circumstances

    Votes: 109 35.4%
  • Not sure - I want to see how the playoffs go first

    Votes: 54 17.5%

  • Total voters
    308
Status
Not open for further replies.

lovegtm

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 30, 2013
11,997
Spencer Dinwiddie was on podcast with Shams and said Kyrie called him in December and was saying things about how “NY might be really fun next year.” So, just 2-3 months after telling Boston he was going to stay.
And a couple weeks after doing the #11 Nike commercial.

I’m all for player freedom of movement, but this dude is pretty clearly just an asshole.
 

Eddie Jurak

canderson-lite
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 12, 2002
44,475
Melrose, MA
On today’s Locked On Celtics Pod, Jay King and John Karalis basically ripped Kyrie a new one. King started them off by pointing out that if Kyrie really wanted out in December, that changes the whole way you look at Kyrie’s actions and comments throughout the season. Then Karalis proceeded to do just that, bringing up a few of the weird Kyrie moments that happened in 2019, and ending with Kyrie’s apparent unconcern about playing like crap in round 2.
 

lovegtm

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 30, 2013
11,997
On today’s Locked On Celtics Pod, Jay King and John Karalis basically ripped Kyrie a new one. King started them off by pointing out that if Kyrie really wanted out in December, that changes the whole way you look at Kyrie’s actions and comments throughout the season. Then Karalis proceeded to do just that, bringing up a few of the weird Kyrie moments that happened in 2019, and ending with Kyrie’s apparent unconcern about playing like crap in round 2.
It’s also awful to have that hanging over a locker room of young guys (which plays into your point about his weird comments and criticism of them).
 

the moops

Member
SoSH Member
Jan 19, 2016
4,700
Saint Paul, MN
It’s also awful to have that hanging over a locker room of young guys (which plays into your point about his weird comments and criticism of them).
At some point these young guys need to grow the fuck up and stop using the "Kyrie was distant and mean and wouldn't commit" excuse
 

JohnnyTheBone

Member
SoSH Member
May 28, 2007
36,331
Nobody Cares
At some point these young guys need to grow the fuck up and stop using the "Kyrie was distant and mean and wouldn't commit" excuse
I haven't heard a single player utter such a sentiment. This is all message-board musing. One thing that is undeniable, however, is that playing and coexisting with a personality like Irving is exhausting. I'm happy he's gone, and my guess is that most of the remaining Celtics players and coaches are, too.
 

DJnVa

Dorito Dawg
SoSH Member
Dec 16, 2010
53,840
I haven't heard a single player utter such a sentiment. This is all message-board musing. One thing that is undeniable, however, is that playing and coexisting with a personality like Irving is exhausting. I'm happy he's gone, and my guess is that most of the remaining Celtics players and coaches are, too.
Yeah, and if this all broke in Dec/Jan, at least in the lockerroom, I'm not sure what anyone expected the other players to do. The only option is to get through the season. No one really mouthed off until the season ended (I see you Rozier).
 

lovegtm

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 30, 2013
11,997
At some point these young guys need to grow the fuck up and stop using the "Kyrie was distant and mean and wouldn't commit" excuse
“He won’t commit” is one thing. GSW had that all year with Durant, as did Toronto with Kawhi. They managed—everyone knew those guys were likely gone, it was part of the deal, and neither pretended otherwise. They played out their contracts hard, which is their only responsibility.

“He’s out the door while lying publicly about his intentions, giving us lame sermons through the media, and not giving a crap overall” is another thing entirely.

The team was way less connected offensively and defensively than any prior Stevens team, and it makes a lot more sense in this context. Players are human, and it’s hard to suck it up and play hard when the ostensible leader of your team is a fucking weirdo who is essentially actively sabotaging the team.
 

lexrageorge

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 31, 2007
18,096
Kyrie had no problems publicly throwing his teammates and coach under the bus last season, so the problems in the locker room went way, way beyond speculation of Kyrie's future team.
 

DJnVa

Dorito Dawg
SoSH Member
Dec 16, 2010
53,840
You wonder if there was some talk between, say, Jaylen and Stevens or Ainge, and they were like "Yeah, it sucks---just keep grinding because we're pretty sure he'd outta here." At that point, what could they really do? That's gonna lead to a sullen locker room--"cross country flight that healed everything" be damned.
 

BigSoxFan

Member
SoSH Member
May 31, 2007
47,088
“He won’t commit” is one thing. GSW had that all year with Durant, as did Toronto with Kawhi. They managed—everyone knew those guys were likely gone, it was part of the deal, and neither pretended otherwise. They played out their contracts hard, which is their only responsibility.

“He’s out the door while lying publicly about his intentions, giving us lame sermons through the media, and not giving a crap overall” is another thing entirely.

The team was way less connected offensively and defensively than any prior Stevens team, and it makes a lot more sense in this context. Players are human, and it’s hard to suck it up and play hard when the ostensible leader of your team is a fucking weirdo who is essentially actively sabotaging the team.
Agree 100%. This was a different animal altogether. Getting ripped by a guy you know is a short timer...f that. Can’t wait for this season. Jaylen and Smart will handle this.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

Well-Known Member
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 24, 2002
48,205
Agree 100%. This was a different animal altogether. Getting ripped by a guy you know is a short timer...f that. Can’t wait for this season. Jaylen and Smart will handle this.
Will they? I am asking seriously.

I know its easy to chalk all the Celtics issues up to chemistry problems created by Irving however I now have questions about the makeup of the remaining players as well. The dysfunction that we've heard about seems larger than just one player.

At the very least, we can say that the locker room culture wasn't very solid if one player could derail everyone else. I know he was the team's de facto leader but there were other veterans around as well as supposed strong coaching and front office culture. Other teams have managed to overcome star players with their own agendas (see GSW and Toronto for example) because the organizations had strong leadership from the FO, coaches and other veterans.

Maybe it will all be fine but I am not as confident as others that this is the case of one bad apple or that the Cs will be ok because Irving and other easy targets in Rozier and Morris are gone.
 

DJnVa

Dorito Dawg
SoSH Member
Dec 16, 2010
53,840
Will they? I am asking seriously.

I know its easy to chalk all the Celtics issues up to chemistry problems created by Irving however I now have questions about the makeup of the remaining players as well. The dysfunction that we've heard about seems larger than just one player.
That's fair, but the ones we heard bitching publicly are Kyrie and Rozier. Both gone.
 

lexrageorge

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 31, 2007
18,096
Will they? I am asking seriously.

I know its easy to chalk all the Celtics issues up to chemistry problems created by Irving however I now have questions about the makeup of the remaining players as well. The dysfunction that we've heard about seems larger than just one player.

At the very least, we can say that the locker room culture wasn't very solid if one player could derail everyone else. I know he was the team's de facto leader but there were other veterans around as well as supposed strong coaching and front office culture. Other teams have managed to overcome star players with their own agendas (see GSW and Toronto for example) because the organizations had strong leadership from the FO, coaches and other veterans.

Maybe it will all be fine but I am not as confident as others that this is the case of one bad apple or that the Cs will be ok because Irving and other easy targets in Rozier and Morris are gone.
Both of the following can be true:

1.) The locker room and on-court issues were not entirely Kyrie's fault.

2.) Between Kyrie's departure, the retooling of the roster to eliminate some of the problematic redundancies, and Ainge/Stevens having learned some things from last season's team, the team's culture should improve next season.
 

joe dokes

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
30,237
“He won’t commit” is one thing. GSW had that all year with Durant, as did Toronto with Kawhi. They managed—everyone knew those guys were likely gone, it was part of the deal, and neither pretended otherwise. They played out their contracts hard, which is their only responsibility.

“He’s out the door while lying publicly about his intentions, giving us lame sermons through the media, and not giving a crap overall” is another thing entirely.

The team was way less connected offensively and defensively than any prior Stevens team, and it makes a lot more sense in this context. Players are human, and it’s hard to suck it up and play hard when the ostensible leader of your team is a fucking weirdo who is essentially actively sabotaging the team.
And for quite a few of them -- Smart, Tatum and Brown, in particular - it may have been the first time that such an important player on one of their teams was such an exhausting drain. "Fear" (for lack of a better word) of crossing the "best player" does not excuse not "playing hard," (and I'm not sure there was a lot of that anyway) but it could definitely be a cause of playing ineffectively and/or timidly.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

Well-Known Member
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 24, 2002
48,205
Both of the following can be true:

1.) The locker room and on-court issues were not entirely Kyrie's fault.

2.) Between Kyrie's departure, the retooling of the roster to eliminate some of the problematic redundancies, and Ainge/Stevens having learned some things from last season's team, the team's culture should improve next season.
Agreed with both you and DrewDawg on your points.

Before this past season, I was a huge fan of both Ainge and Stevens as well as of the remaining players on the roster. Its my hope that, to your point, the departures as well as the lessons learned result in better chemistry. However it won't completely surprise me if we find out that there are problems with any of the holdovers, including Smart whom I love, or the coaching staff/front-office.

Its not my base case, but again, my experience is that while organizational dysfunction is easy to pin on a few culprits, especially after they have moved on, the reality is that bad chemistry is the result of much larger, structural issues.
 

Tony C

Moderator
Moderator
SoSH Member
Apr 13, 2000
13,694
I don't follow the Celtics like you guys do, so I put this out there as a question: I guess I don't get why Stevens gets such a pass when Kyrie is being discussed. I know I've read some discussion of him here in that regard, but in these recent posts it's as if the coach isn't a part of all of this. In all pro sports a coaches job is as much locker room dynamics as it is Xs and Os, no? It's not that it's the coach's fault, exactly, when a lockerroom goes haywire -- it's generally the direct fault of some AWOL a-hole like Kyrie. But that type of challenge exists in all locker rooms (to some extent) and isn't it a test of a coach if he can manage that? To give a flipside example, I don't think Ty Lue has a great rep as an X and O guy, but he handled the Cavs locker room in a great way. Is it really enough to say Stevens is a good X and O guy when he doesn't seem to have handled the first major locker room challenge of his career? Or is it more that the hope is this was just unusually weird and beyond the scope of any coach?
 

bowiac

Caveat: I know nothing about what I speak
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 18, 2003
12,945
New York, NY
It's somewhat unclear how well any coach can handle that stuff when they're dealing with a difficult personality. Doc I guess is the gold standard there, but even Pop had it blow up in his face with Kawhi. It's just the nature of the NBA - the top players are substantially underpaid, so they exert their influence in other ways.
 

Tony C

Moderator
Moderator
SoSH Member
Apr 13, 2000
13,694
Yeah, the Pop example is a good one in re some stuff being out of control of even the best.
 

Montana Fan

Member
SoSH Member
Oct 18, 2000
8,880
Twin Bridges, Mt.
Agreed with both you and DrewDawg on your points.

Before this past season, I was a huge fan of both Ainge and Stevens as well as of the remaining players on the roster. Its my hope that, to your point, the departures as well as the lessons learned result in better chemistry. However it won't completely surprise me if we find out that there are problems with any of the holdovers, including Smart whom I love, or the coaching staff/front-office.

Its not my base case, but again, my experience is that while organizational dysfunction is easy to pin on a few culprits, especially after they have moved on, the reality is that bad chemistry is the result of much larger, structural issues.
DeJesus, my opinion is that Kyrie was playing ISO ball and the rest of the team was mostly listening to Brad and trying to play team ball. I think the chemistry will see a big improvement on court which will lead to improvement on court.
 

HowBoutDemSox

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 12, 2009
10,103
Yeah, the Pop example is a good one in re some stuff being out of control of even the best.
I think it’s also worth mentioning that this was Brad’s first time dealing with this kind of unhappy locker room situation, so he’s learning on the job here. If issues like this keep recurring, I’d be more inclined to hold it against him, but until it becomes a trend I think people are more than willing to give him another chance with the updated roster before breaking out the pitchforks.
 

nighthob

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
12,678
You wonder if there was some talk between, say, Jaylen and Stevens or Ainge, and they were like "Yeah, it sucks---just keep grinding because we're pretty sure he'd outta here." At that point, what could they really do? That's gonna lead to a sullen locker room--"cross country flight that healed everything" be damned.
Well they allegedly rebuffed the Clippers overtures for Irving, so I don't think they did know. If they had, they would have sent him to LA.
 

DJnVa

Dorito Dawg
SoSH Member
Dec 16, 2010
53,840
Well they allegedly rebuffed the Clippers overtures for Irving, so I don't think they did know. If they had, they would have sent him to LA.
That's true, but I meant in the sense of, if Kyrie is bitching, then at least once the season is over--either he's gone or some of these young guys are gone, because I think Ainge gets AD if Kyrie stays.

In other words, I don't think there was any way this same group was coming back next season.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

Well-Known Member
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 24, 2002
48,205
DeJesus, my opinion is that Kyrie was playing ISO ball and the rest of the team was mostly listening to Brad and trying to play team ball. I think the chemistry will see a big improvement on court which will lead to improvement on court.
This may be the case and I hope you are correct. That said, I am not sure that Kyrie's ISO-ball vs the rest of the team is the issue here. There are signs that the young players felt that they had earned more responsibility via the -'17-18 playoff run and were frustrated with their progress on what most people here would agree was a difficult roster to manage given the overall talent level. If that was part of the dynamic, it bears watching going forward. In theory, young players wanting/expecting more touches etc isn't a bad thing but what if that desire is in disproportion to actual production? If Stevens can't manage that, its a problem - its not right now but it bears watching.

I think it’s also worth mentioning that this was Brad’s first time dealing with this kind of unhappy locker room situation, so he’s learning on the job here. If issues like this keep recurring, I’d be more inclined to hold it against him, but until it becomes a trend I think people are more than willing to give him another chance with the updated roster before breaking out the pitchforks.
Agreed on this as well. I think its unfair to pin everything on Stevens and I think this forum, for example, was pretty kind to him given the results last year. However, its probably not a stretch to say that his stock has fallen as a result of how things went down during the season. Kyrie may be gone but he is still going to have to manage large personalities/egos to be successful in the NBA. If the team has more alleged problems in the locker room next year, we probably need to reassess his ability to run a team at this level.
 

Kliq

Member
SoSH Member
Mar 31, 2013
22,668
I think Stevens' rep has definitely taken a hit over the last 12 months; there were a lot of people on this site calling him the best coach in the NBA and I don't see that praise being tossed around this year. Whether it was because of Kyrie or other challenges, I think he has certainly lost some shine compared to this time last year.

That being said, I think Coach Brad and the Celtics in general ended up being victims of outsized expectations that were beyond their own control, for two reasons:

1. The Celtics had a surprise run to the ECF last season, without Kyrie or Hayward, and were a game away from the Finals. This was largely a fluke based on a very weak Eastern Conference, and a few role players like Terry Rozier playing at an unsustainable level. Especially because this was done without Kyrie, the Celtics had very high expectations for the following season with a healthy Irving, because conventional wisdom indicated that adding an All-Star to a team that nearly made the Finals would help push them over the top. In some ways, because Brad did such a fantastic job in the 2017-2018 playoffs, in worked against him in 2018-2019 because it set the bar much higher.

2. People thought Kyrie was much better than he really is. I've said this a number of times, but too often Kyrie was discussed in the same way that guys like Harden, Giannis, Curry, LeBron, etc. were, when in reality he was at least one tier, if not two, below those guys. I think some people assumed that Kyrie would just be able to consistently "take over" and single-handily win games for a flawed team, but he wasn't that kind of player.

I don't think the Celtics were that bad last season; they probably performed up to their talent level in most cases, but Kyrie's imprint on the team left a foul stench and expectations were so high that people were expected 67 wins and a Finals appearance, so merely a 50 win season and a second-round exit to the #1 seed felt like a massive disappointment.
 

Captaincoop

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
13,487
Santa Monica, CA
When your best player is not on board with the team's program, there's no basketball coach that can just magically make it work. You either cut bait on a talented player and work with the remaining lesser talent (a very bold move at any level of basketball - almost impossible given the circumstances last year with the Celtics) or you hang on and hope for the best.

There was nothing in his first four years to indicate that he's anything but a top notch NBA coach. The simplest explanation here is that Kyrie (along with some other circumstances) derailed the team's chemistry, and made it difficult for Brad to coach the team. Brad has had success with Smart, with Tatum, with Brown, and with Hayward in the past. Kemba appears to be 100% bought-in coming into the year.

It seems more likely to me that Kyrie is a coach-killing pain in the ass than it is that Brad forgot how to coach or that his tremendous work in 2013-2018 was all a mirage. I have a feeling Brad is going to be a genius again now that Kyrie is gone.
 

nighthob

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
12,678
Will they? I am asking seriously.

I know its easy to chalk all the Celtics issues up to chemistry problems created by Irving however I now have questions about the makeup of the remaining players as well. The dysfunction that we've heard about seems larger than just one player.

At the very least, we can say that the locker room culture wasn't very solid if one player could derail everyone else. I know he was the team's de facto leader but there were other veterans around as well as supposed strong coaching and front office culture. Other teams have managed to overcome star players with their own agendas (see GSW and Toronto for example) because the organizations had strong leadership from the FO, coaches and other veterans.

Maybe it will all be fine but I am not as confident as others that this is the case of one bad apple or that the Cs will be ok because Irving and other easy targets in Rozier and Morris are gone.
Well, looking at the other two cases you see some marked differences. Leonard decided he was leaving but he put the Raptors on his back and dragged them to a title. Durant gave everything, literally, to the Warriors. A lot more than he ever should have, frankly. But Irving stopped caring early on, but still remained the center of the clubhouse and dictated a very disjointed offensive flow. (I mean this thread alone has pages of this sort of discussion going back all year.)

If Boston had known about that call they could have just unloaded him on Brooklyn for 3¢ on the dollar (i.e. Dunwiddie, Crabbe, and a 2019 first) and moved on. And more and more I wish they had given up on the Davis dreams and done just that.
 

benhogan

Granite Truther
SoSH Member
Nov 2, 2007
20,112
Santa Monica
Well, looking at the other two cases you see some marked differences. Leonard decided he was leaving but he put the Raptors on his back and dragged them to a title. Durant gave everything, literally, to the Warriors. A lot more than he ever should have, frankly. But Irving stopped caring early on, but still remained the center of the clubhouse and dictated a very disjointed offensive flow. (I mean this thread alone has pages of this sort of discussion going back all year.)

If Boston had known about that call they could have just unloaded him on Brooklyn for 3¢ on the dollar (i.e. Dunwiddie, Crabbe, and a 2019 first) and moved on. And more and more I wish they had given up on the Davis dreams and done just that.
it's ironic that Trader Danny's biggest flaw over the last year has been the inability to pull the trigger on a Kawhi deal, moving an unhappy Kyrie or making any moves during the season that set the team up for the future prior to their Plan A this offseason :eyeroll:

This thread has been pretty spot on today. The more that comes out from last season the more I question Brad and Danny's handling of the team.
 

lexrageorge

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 31, 2007
18,096
it's ironic that Trader Danny's biggest flaw over the last year has been the inability to pull the trigger on a Kawhi deal, moving an unhappy Kyrie or making any moves during the season that set the team up for the future prior to their Plan A this offseason :eyeroll:

This thread has been pretty spot on today. The more that comes out from last season the more I question Brad and Danny's handling of the team.
What more came out?

Horford wanting to play the 4? That's news from June, and that alone seems unlikely to make up for 4/109. Kyrie wanting to leave in March? Not sure why anyone was surprised.

Brad admitted he didn't do his best job coaching, and that he hopes to learn from it going forward. Blaming Ainge for not trading Kyrie at the deadline is classic hindsight. As for Kawhi, he'd still be a Clipper today even in the highly unlikely event Ainge would have been able to better Toronto's offer and make the salaries work.

As for the future, they still have the Memphis pick, a promising young player in Tatum (and possibly Brown), and an All-NBA player in the fold.
 
The more that comes out from last season the more I question Brad and Danny's handling of the team.
Really?

The more that comes out, the more I'd feel confident in Brad and Danny's handling of the team going forward. Kyrie is a talented team-killer: all the dysfunction we're learning about is centered around him, isn't it? (Horford not wanting to play the 5 is something we'd heard as Hawks fans for years before he ever came to Boston, FWIW.) Just because Stevens isn't Belichick and Ainge isn't Auerbach - and nobody is, on either count - doesn't mean they're not a great coach and a great GM.
 

Soxy

Member
SoSH Member
Dec 1, 2008
6,095
And for quite a few of them -- Smart, Tatum and Brown, in particular - it may have been the first time that such an important player on one of their teams was such an exhausting drain. "Fear" (for lack of a better word) of crossing the "best player" does not excuse not "playing hard," (and I'm not sure there was a lot of that anyway) but it could definitely be a cause of playing ineffectively and/or timidly.
Tatum and Brown, sure, but I don't think you can lump Smart with them. By all accounts that I've seen, including direct quotes from Smart himself, he got along fine with Kyrie. Maybe he was just trying to say the right things to the media but it certainly never came across like that.

Here's one example of him sticking up for Kyrie after the season was over:

When asked if Irving's attitude played a part in those struggles, Smart came to his defense.

"Bull----," Smart said bluntly. "That's bull----. Not one of us on this team knows what Kyrie's been through. Probably a few amount of people in this world know what Kyrie goes through. It was hard for him as well. He was forced into a situation where it was business over the friendships, where he had to come into a situation knowing that, 'This is a group of guys that had something going before I came here. How will I fit in?' He didn't want to disrupt that. That says a lot.

"That's just a bull---- statement to say his leadership killed us," Smart continued. "It's four other guys out there, 12 or 13 other guys on the team, coaches and everything, so to just blame it on one guy is bull----."
I think Smart is correct and you can't just pin all of it on Kyrie. It was a bad roster/team fit for a lot of people. Smart seemed to be one of the few who was able to navigate through that. It's easy to make Kyrie the villain but he wasn't the only guy on the team who didn't react positively when things didn't go according to plan.

That said, I still think Kyrie was the root of most of the issues on last year's team and probably deserves the most blame. I don't think he meshed well with Brad or most of the guys on the roster. Not exactly a controversial take there. I also get the impression that Kyrie wanted very much to be the reason that the team was successful and probably bit off more than he could chew. Look at some of the crazy shit he did in the Bucks series, like calling guys off to guard Giannis one on one. Like.... what the hell was that about?

I don't think winning with the Celtics was ever going to be enough for Kyrie; I think he wanted Kyrie to be the reason that the Celtics won. Then he goes out, puts up maybe the best statistical season he's ever had..... and the team is a disappointment. Kyrie being great wasn't enough to get them over the hump. So he realizes this isn't going happen in Boston and he figures: "I may as well just go home and play with my buddies because this isn't any fun at all."

It sucks but I'm not sure I really fault the guy for leaving. He clearly was miserable in Boston by the end of it. Is that a guy we really want here? I mean, I don't care how talented you are if you don't want to be here and you're not going to buy-in. When that person is your best player, it's a borderline impossible situation to navigate through successfully.

I have to think that last year was pretty eye-opening for Brad and the Celts' upper brass, and that they learned a lot of tough lessons. It reminds me of the classic Belichick quote that the Patriots aren't just trying to accumulate talent; they're trying to build a team. Ainge and the Celts had done a great job of accumulating talent (or "assets" if you want to use that term) but they didn't seem to do a very good job of building a team.
 

pjheff

Member
SoSH Member
Jan 4, 2003
1,296
Blaming Ainge for not trading Kyrie at the deadline is classic hindsight.
It is playing the result. I think lots of Celtics fans would have been outraged if Ainge had thrown in the towel on the season come February 7th, and I doubt a whole lot of Raptors fans are blaming Ujiri for failing to extract assets from Kawhi at this point.
 

lexrageorge

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 31, 2007
18,096
I'm sure to some extent Ainge and Stevens fell into the same trap that a lot of fans fell into.

Flashback to summer of 2017, and we have Gordon Hayward, an All Star, joining the Celtics in place of Olynyk. He picked up Baynes as a free agent, who was a perfect fit next to Al for that team. Then Kyrie falls into his lap, which also allows him to move from IT4. Ainge had assembled a "mini-Big 3" in Al/Kyrie/Hayward, and had a promising 2nd year player in Brown and an enticing draft pick in Tatum. And he turned Avery Bradley into a Marcus Morris who was recovering from a major knee injury but who would be able to play a role coming off the bench his first year. And Rozier was the backup PG for the Kyrie maintenance days. Everything seemed fine during training camp that year. And then after Hayward's injury, the team goes on a 16 game winning streak en route to a really good season with Kyrie at the helm through early March. Then the playoff run happens, with Rozier, Brown, and Tatum all playing key roles, and the future looks really good.

Is that a team anyone would expect Ainge to blow up by trading Kyrie? Was it time to trade their young players for a player coming off a serious injury who was clearly committed to playing in LA once he became a free agent? Honestly, let's be realistic; everything on that Celtics team was pointing up and to the right.

Ainge kept Rozier, mainly as Kyrie insurance, as Kyrie's knee injury was worrisome at the time. And, to a lesser extent, Morris was kept as Hayward insurance. But is it really a slam dunk that the team would have been better had either or both been traded? Rozier was a backup PG; how much difference would a different backup PG have made? Morris was a key player for the team during the first half of the season, especially with both Brown and Hayward struggling. I guess Ainge could have traded them at the trade deadline, but the Celtics still don't make it past the Bucks.

Kyrie was not the only problem with the team. But, unfortunately, he was one of the problems, and it's definitely best for all parties involved that he moved on. The roster redundancies have been addressed with Rozier and Morris moving on. I think it's prudent to give everyone a clean slate and see how Brad and Danny do going forward. So far, Ainge's decisions since the draft and the start of free agency seem to have been the right ones, but time will tell.
 

nighthob

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
12,678
What more came out?

Horford wanting to play the 4? That's news from June, and that alone seems unlikely to make up for 4/109. Kyrie wanting to leave in March? Not sure why anyone was surprised.
Actually what came out today is that he told a member of the Nets in December that he was going there. I have previously said that I don't blame Ainge for hanging on to his AD dreams. All I said here is that I wish he knew about Irving talking with Brooklyn so early in the year so that he could have moved on then & there.

As for Kawhi, he'd still be a Clipper today even in the highly unlikely event Ainge would have been able to better Toronto's offer and make the salaries work.
If Danny could have talked San Antonio into Irving for Kawhi Boston would still be better off.
 

lexrageorge

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 31, 2007
18,096
...

If Danny could have talked San Antonio into Irving for Kawhi Boston would still be better off.
I don't necessarily disagree; in fact, I don't disagree at all. However, no-one was thinking that last summer, especially with Kyrie seeming to be a perfect fit in Boston his first season here. Blaming Ainge for not making that move is like blaming Belichick for not landing Larry Fitzgerald.
 

HomeRunBaker

bet squelcher
SoSH Member
Jan 15, 2004
30,096
DeJesus, my opinion is that Kyrie was playing ISO ball and the rest of the team was mostly listening to Brad and trying to play team ball. I think the chemistry will see a big improvement on court which will lead to improvement on court.
If ISO ball was the issue how does replacing Kyrie with Kemba change anything when you still have Tatum and Jaylen as your ball stoppers along with the PG? Even if Gordon is utilized in a point-forward role there won’t be much ball movement once it’s out of his hands.
 

lexrageorge

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 31, 2007
18,096
If ISO ball was the issue how does replacing Kyrie with Kemba change anything when you still have Tatum and Jaylen as your ball stoppers along with the PG? Even if Gordon is utilized in a point-forward role there won’t be much ball movement once it’s out of his hands.
The team with Tatum and Brown weren't ball stoppers in 2017-18. Something changed last season.
 

benhogan

Granite Truther
SoSH Member
Nov 2, 2007
20,112
Santa Monica
What more came out?

Horford wanting to play the 4? That's news from June, and that alone seems unlikely to make up for 4/109. Kyrie wanting to leave in March? Not sure why anyone was surprised.

Brad admitted he didn't do his best job coaching, and that he hopes to learn from it going forward. Blaming Ainge for not trading Kyrie at the deadline is classic hindsight. As for Kawhi, he'd still be a Clipper today even in the highly unlikely event Ainge would have been able to better Toronto's offer and make the salaries work.

As for the future, they still have the Memphis pick, a promising young player in Tatum (and possibly Brown), and an All-NBA player in the fold.
Ainge interview today is what came out, Danny confirmed that Al wanted to play the 4. It's been a stance of mine since the 2017 pre-season, that Horford should play the 4 over 50% of the time. Many claimed that Horford was more than fine playing Center(5) 93% of the time, which we now know wasn't true. Al Horford was an All-Star at the 4, and he was efficient with Baynes and Theis. That's my issue with the Brad/Danny "handling the team" (along with a crappy locker room)

As far as trades I was saying it was ironic that the thing Danny is known for "trading" players, didn't make any trades. I'm not saying he should have made any trades in hindsight.
 

luckiestman

Son of the Harpy
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
32,618
Ainge interview today is what came out, Danny confirmed that Al wanted to play the 4. It's been a stance of mine since the 2017 pre-season, that Horford should play the 4 over 50% of the time. Many claimed that Horford was more than fine playing Center(5) 93% of the time, which we now know wasn't true. Al Horford was an All-Star at the 4, and he was efficient with Baynes and Theis. That's my issue with the Brad/Danny "handling the team" (along with a crappy locker room)

As far as trades I was saying it was ironic that the thing Danny is known for "trading" players, didn't make any trades. I'm not saying he should have made any trades in hindsight.

I want to play center field for the New York Yankees, problem is, I’m not good at that. Al is going to get ROASTED if he tries to play the 4 all season. He will be a backup C to Joel in the playoffs if PHI is smaht.
 

DJnVa

Dorito Dawg
SoSH Member
Dec 16, 2010
53,840
Ainge on Toucher and Rich today:

1--Kyrie expressed to him around March that he wanted to go home. Ainge said Kyrie was always professional when they talked about it.
2--Despite that, Kyrie never told Ainge he was going to leave.
3--Kyrie wavered on things depending on how team was playing.
4--When Ainge asked him if he'd considered resigning, he always said "yes".
5--Ultimately Kyrie never told Ainge he had a problem with Boston, he just wanted to go home. Ainge characterized it as Kyrie picking Nets over Knicks, not the Nets over Celtics.
6--Ainge never pressured him, saying he knew what Boston had and he wants players that want to be here.

Ainge apparently called back into the show to clarify some things and defend Kyrie, saying everyone including Stevens and himself share the responsibility for last season.
 

benhogan

Granite Truther
SoSH Member
Nov 2, 2007
20,112
Santa Monica
I want to play center field for the New York Yankees, problem is, I’m not good at that. Al is going to get ROASTED if he tries to play the 4 all season. He will be a backup C to Joel in the playoffs if PHI is smaht.
1. Al will play half his time at the 4 and 5 and he'll be an All-Stah

2. That's funny because I don't remember Al getting ROASTED playing next to Aron Baynes or Daniel Theis?

3. $109MM to play back up Center? Bismack Biyombo is jealous

4. f-^@k the Yankees
 
Last edited:

wade boggs chicken dinner

Member
SoSH Member
Mar 26, 2005
30,491
2. People thought Kyrie was much better than he really is. I've said this a number of times, but too often Kyrie was discussed in the same way that guys like Harden, Giannis, Curry, LeBron, etc. were, when in reality he was at least one tier, if not two, below those guys. I think some people assumed that Kyrie would just be able to consistently "take over" and single-handily win games for a flawed team, but he wasn't that kind of player.
The reason people thought KI would be able to "consistently 'take over' and single-handily win games" is because we watched him do it - both before he was with the Cs and after he joined us (thinking mostly to the season before last but there were a few times last season when KI carried the Cs on his back). Maybe those past results had to do with the particular circumstances of those games but that was the thinking.

The most disappointing thing about last season is that KI couldn't take over even one game against MIL. That wouldn't have been my best guess at what would happen.
 

BigSoxFan

Member
SoSH Member
May 31, 2007
47,088
The reason people thought KI would be able to "consistently 'take over' and single-handily win games" is because we watched him do it - both before he was with the Cs and after he joined us (thinking mostly to the season before last but there were a few times last season when KI carried the Cs on his back). Maybe those past results had to do with the particular circumstances of those games but that was the thinking.

The most disappointing thing about last season is that KI couldn't take over even one game against MIL. That wouldn't have been my best guess at what would happen.
Yeah. All the drama aside, watching Kyrie against MIL was just so disappointing from a pure basketball standpoint. I expected more.
 

Kliq

Member
SoSH Member
Mar 31, 2013
22,668
The reason people thought KI would be able to "consistently 'take over' and single-handily win games" is because we watched him do it - both before he was with the Cs and after he joined us (thinking mostly to the season before last but there were a few times last season when KI carried the Cs on his back). Maybe those past results had to do with the particular circumstances of those games but that was the thinking.

The most disappointing thing about last season is that KI couldn't take over even one game against MIL. That wouldn't have been my best guess at what would happen.
It's not that Kyrie was capable of such heroics from time to time; it was expecting that he could do it consistently. I never once thought Irving could be the best player on a championship team; maybe some people did. I just never saw him as a top tier NBA player, and I think some people expected that from him.
 

luckiestman

Son of the Harpy
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
32,618
It's not that Kyrie was capable of such heroics from time to time; it was expecting that he could do it consistently. I never once thought Irving could be the best player on a championship team; maybe some people did. I just never saw him as a top tier NBA player, and I think some people expected that from him.

This reasoning is a bit off. If Hayward didn’t get hurt the Cs win the East and they always play GS tough. The question then becomes is KI better than healthy GH and therefore the best player on a championship team.

Kyrie quit in the playoffs or he has a drug problem. When he is on he is a very good player.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

Well-Known Member
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 24, 2002
48,205
Kyrie quit in the playoffs or he has a drug problem. When he is on he is a very good player.
This is baseless on both fronts.

The more obvious answer for Irving's performance in the playoffs is pretty simple. He was Boston's only true, consistent scoring threat. He was also Boston's only player who could also consistently generate his own looks. As such, opposing teams schemed to stop him and let the rest of the Celtics beat them, knowing full well that if they were successful, it would take an outlier performance by any of those players to make them pay.

We can debate where Irving ranks versus the different tiers of players but the other teams that went deep in the playoffs had multiple scoring threats without exception. Boston did not. As such, I don't think criticizing him for not carrying a flawed Boston team deeper is entirely fair.
 

luckiestman

Son of the Harpy
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
32,618
This is baseless on both fronts.

The more obvious answer for Irving's performance in the playoffs is pretty simple. He was Boston's only true, consistent scoring threat. He was also Boston's only player who could also consistently generate his own looks. As such, opposing teams schemed to stop him and let the rest of the Celtics beat them, knowing full well that if they were successful, it would take an outlier performance by any of those players to make them pay.

We can debate where Irving ranks versus the different tiers of players but the other teams that went deep in the playoffs had multiple scoring threats without exception. Boston did not. As such, I don't think criticizing him for not carrying a flawed Boston team deeper is entirely fair.

I’m not talking about his offense. Listen to Lowe’s podcast or watch the video where Kyrie is insisting on guarding the Freak and getting torched.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

Well-Known Member
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 24, 2002
48,205
I’m not talking about his offense. Listen to Lowe’s podcast or watch the video where Kyrie is insisting on guarding the Freak and getting torched.
Kyrie Irving has never been considered a good defender. Singling his bad defense and poor defensive decisions out as a sign that there is something else going on seems odd but YRMV. Even when he tries and makes good decisions, he is a liability on defense and always has been.
 

luckiestman

Son of the Harpy
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
32,618
Kyrie Irving has never been considered a good defender. Singling his bad defense and poor defensive decisions out as a sign that there is something else going on seems odd but YRMV. Even when he tries and makes good decisions, he is a liability on defense and always has been.

I’m not talking about his general suckage on defense. He was moving players on his own team so he could pick up Middleton or Giannis. It was strange, like dropping acid strange.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.