Lessons From the Kyrie Irving Era in Boston

In his 4:44 album, Jay-Z quipped, “A loss ain’t a loss, it’s a lesson.” After a disappointing 2018-2019 season, the Boston Celtics lost in the second round of the playoffs. It’s time to search for some lessons.

Kyrie Irving is teaming up with Kevin Durant to join the Brooklyn Nets after playing two seasons with the Celtics which couldn’t be more different. Now that Kyrie’s time with the Boston Celtics has officially ended, it’s time to see if we can learn anything from his two years in green.

There are so many lessons that we as basketball watchers can learn from Kyrie’s stint with the Celtics. Some can be applied to areas of life that aren’t basketball related. Some are funny. There are seven main lessons that one can take away from the Kyrie Irving era in Boston. The reason why I’m only doing seven lessons is in honor of Ariana Grande’s song ”7 rings” because I wanted to reference a Jay-Z lyric and an Ariana Grande song in back to back paragraphs in an article about Kyrie Irving since I’m pretty sure that’s never been done before. Anyways on to the lessons we go:

1. Whatever a player says in October regarding their free agency is irrelevant.

During a season ticket holder event last October Irving famously said: “If you guys will have me back, I plan on re-signing here.” That statement definitely hasn’t aged well. So many things can unravel in a season that can change a player’s decision.

Kyrie showed us that a player could go from wanting to re-sign in October to bolting in June. We saw the opposite of this in 2018 when Paul George re-signed with the Oklahoma City Thunder after it seemed like he would be going to Los Angeles after one season with the Thunder (though he has ultimately ended up in LA). Things can dramatically change in either direction in the course of a single year, so let’s quit acting like free agency decisions are a done deal before basketball is played even if the player is involved in a commercial that makes it seem very convincing he will re-sign.

2. Going after the young people who you work with publicly probably isn’t a good way to build morale in the work place.

Irving went after the young players on the Celtics during the 2018-2019 season. Although he didn’t mention them by name, it’s pretty safe to assume he was talking about Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Terry Rozier. After a loss to the Orlando Magic, Irving said:

“The young guys don’t know what it takes to be a championship level team. What it takes every day. And if they think it is hard now, what do they think it will be like when we’re trying to get to the Finals?”

First off, the young players on the Boston Celtics were a couple of minutes away from making the NBA Finals in 2018 without Irving who was out due to injury. Regardless of that, how does taking public shots at them help the locker room? The team had shaky chemistry all year, so the last thing they needed was one player going after some of the others to the media.

Imagine if you started a new job and a more experienced person who you work with talked openly to others about how you didn’t know how to succeed in your role. Do you think that would be someone you’d be able to do your best work alongside? The good news for Irving is that the Nets don’t have any inexperienced young players at all. Oh, wait.

3. The Rose Rule Prevention

We as fans have now learned that a team cannot trade for two players who are on a contract extension that was signed through the Rose Rule. Many Celtics fans dreamed of an Irving and Anthony Davis pairing that would demolish the post-LeBron Eastern Conference for years to come. However, when  Davis requested a trade from the New Orleans Pelicans, the Celtics were unable to make an offer because they’d already traded for one player (Irving) who was on a contract that was signed under the Rose Rule. Technically, the Celtics could’ve made an offer for Davis if Irving was part of the package, but then you wouldn’t be able to accomplish the goal of pairing them together.

Who knows if this little part of the Rose Rule will ever be relevant in the future. Maybe it’ll come up again if the Knicks sign John Calipari as their head coach with the intention of trading all of their assets to Phoenix and Minnesota to form a Booker-Towns pairing before realizing they’re prohibited from doing so. It’s the Knicks, so it can’t be ruled out.

4. There is no loyalty in sports

During the 2017 NBA playoffs, Isaiah Thomas led the Celtics to the Eastern Conference Finals while suffering from his sister’s death and a hip injury. Danny Ainge traded him a couple months later as part of a package to acquire Irving from the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Celtics traded Isaiah who had maximized his potential for a younger and more talented player in Irving. It was the right move.

Isaiah never got the big payday. He is about to be on his fourth team since the Celtics traded him two years ago and hasn’t been the same player he was in Boston before the hip injury. He gave his all to the Celtics, and that ended up costing him.

We shouldn’t fault a franchise for doing what they believe will help them improve. While on the flip side, we shouldn’t fault players for doing what they believe is best for them in regards to their injuries and decisions about where they want to play. This is a business. This is people’s careers. We’ve now entered into an era where the only loyalty from either side is to their best option.

5. The Earth is round.

Do I really need to expand further?

6. Kyrie isn’t a number one option

It always seemed that the main reason as to why Irving wanted a trade from Cleveland was to get out of James’ shadow in order to be the man on his own team. In his first season with the Celtics, it seemed like Irving was capable of being the number one option on a contender as he led them to one of the top two records in the conference. Unluckily, he didn’t get a chance to truly prove if he was capable of this in the 2018 playoffs due to a knee injury that kept him sidelined.

As rocky as his second season in Boston was, Irving still had a chance to silence his doubters in the playoffs. After the Celtics won their first five games in the 2019 postseason, which included a sweep of the Indiana Pacers and a road win against the top seeded Milwaukee Bucks, it seemed like Irving was living up to expectations. However, this was quickly disproved when the Celtics lost the next four games against Milwaukee as Irving struggled. He shot an abysmal 30.1% making only 25-83 attempts in the four losses to the Bucks. After his performance in the Milwaukee series, it was obvious Irving couldn’t be the best player on a true title contender.

It’s not a knock on Irving to say he can’t be the number one option on a contender. It’s not something that’s easy to do. The only active players who have proven they’re capable of it are James, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, and Kawhi Leonard. Irving won’t be the number one option in Brooklyn once Durant comes back from injury. Irving will have to go back to his role as the number two which he has proven that he can succeed in. When it comes to Irving being ‘the man’, I think my friend Devon put it best when he told me, “Irving tried to be Nightwing and failed. Back to Robin he goes.”

7. Games aren’t won on paper.

I’ll admit this lesson is a cliché. Nevertheless, when the Celtics were returning Irving and Gordon Hayward to a team that almost made the Finals a year ago, it seemed logical to think they could walk through the East. Unfortunately for the Celtics, they actually had to play basketball games.

If you follow the NBA, you know what happened by now. The Celtics suffered from chemistry issues across the roster all season long. Mike Budenholzer turned Milwaukee from a 7-seed to a title contender as Giannis became an MVP. Toronto became a serious threat with Kawhi Leonard and ended up winning the championship. Philadelphia loaded up on talent with the Jimmy Butler and Tobias Harris trades while Joel Embiid improved. In a matter of months, the Celtics went from the favorites to come out of the East to not even winning the bronze as the team most likely to come out of the conference.

One of the biggest criticisms the NBA gets is that it’s too predictable. Many people believe whichever team has the most stars is going to win the title every year, so there’s no point in actually watching the games. Having good players is important, but fit and chemistry are also factors when it comes to being a successful NBA team.

The Celtics added an All-NBA player in Irving to a conference finalist team. They ended up doing worse in the playoffs with him the following year. Whether it’s a cliché or not, the 2018-2019 Celtics season showed that games are won on the court, not on paper. Yeah, that definitely sounds like a cliché, but it’s true.