A sense of relief swept across Boston in early October when Kyrie Irving said he planned to re-sign with the Celtics next offseason. And we now have a little more insight into why he wants to stay with the C’s.
Irving has given his verbal commitment to team president Danny Ainge and Co. that once free agency opens July 1, 2019, he will re-sign with Boston. Though nothing is official until the ink dries, it squashed quite a few offseason murmurs about Irving possibly having his eyes set elsewhere.
The guard did a 1-on-1 interview with The Athletic’s Shams Charania and explained the factors that went into his decision to commit to Boston.
“It was pretty easy man, honestly,” Irving said of the process of informing the Celtics of his decision. “I had obviously a lot of considerations going there — going elsewhere — but naturally you want to keep your options open, you want to think about the future. But at the end of the day, I started kind of honing in on what meant the most to me, and that was having a future here in Boston, that was having great teammates, that was having a great training staff, that was having a great coaching staff, that was having great upper management.
“And then most importantly, it’s being connected to an incredible, incredible culture that has existed way before me and will exist after me and I wanted to be a part of that. It was the same conversation that I had with my dad when I went to Duke, same conversation I had when I was a St. Patrick Celtic. It’s the next challenge in my career and I need to handle it face on.”
You can watch the full interview here, with the comment on staying in Boston coming at the 6:00 mark.
Should Irving stick to his word and re-sign with the Celtics, Boston is poised to be one of the most dangerous teams in the NBA for years.
