If Kyrie Irving signs elsewhere in free agency this offseason, there’s a good chance not everyone in the Boston Celtics’ locker room will be sad to see him go.
Irving’s two-year tenure with Boston has been marred by false hope, particularly this season when the Celtics lost to the Milwaukee Bucks in the second round of the playoffs despite entering the 2018-19 campaign with NBA Finals aspirations. And according to Jeff Goodman, a basketball analyst currently working for Stadium, the All-Star point guard’s demeanor doesn’t always sit well with his teammates.
“The thing with Kyrie is he thinks he’s like the best player in the NBA or certainly right up there with it, and at times he looks like it,” Goodman said on the most recent episode of the Lakers Nation Podcast on CLNS Media. “But man, he got eaten up in the playoffs. He was terrible. He was terrible in the playoffs, and he’s become really — let’s put it this way: I talked to players on the Celtics, and one of them said like, he just takes the air out of the locker room. He’s hard to play with. He’s super talented, but hard to play with, and the other part of it is he’s just so moody.”
Irving can opt out of his contract with the Celtics and test the open market, at which point there figure to be several teams interested in his services. The rumored list of potential suitors includes the Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets, with some pundits speculating Irving’s future could be tied to what Kevin Durant does in free agency.
Goodman, for what it’s worth, doesn’t see the Lakers as being a good option for Irving despite the 27-year-old mending fences with LeBron James almost two years after forcing a trade from the Cleveland Cavaliers. He also doesn’t anticipate Irving will return to Boston, even though the Celtics present a desirable situation in spite of whatever awkwardness might exist in the locker room.
“I don’t see him going back to L.A. I don’t see him staying in Boston, which is crazy to me because there’s not a better situation for Kyrie than in Boston,” Goodman said. “You’re playing for a coach who lets you do whatever the hell you want in Brad Stevens — he’s the easiest guy to deal with, ever. It’s your team. Clearly, it’s your team. You’ve got some young guys that, yeah, they want bigger roles, but it’s Kyrie’s team. Everybody knows that, and that’s what he’s always wanted. He’s got the ball in his hands at the end of the game, in the playoffs, whenever, and it just didn’t work out for him.”
One can debate whether the Celtics are better off with or without Irving. It’s hard to imagine there being a bigger Boston rival next season if Irving leaves, however, and that should make for some entertaining basketball, if nothing else.
