The narrative the Kyrie left the Cavs to be "the man" isn't totally accurate

[LarBrd33]

This is a narrative the media picked up, because it was simple and marketable.  Kyrie wanted to leave LeBron to be "the man" and prove he could win without him.   It was a fun story and allowed the media to pile on him when he "failed" this season, but it's not entirely true.

Take a closer look at the timeline and you can see it's a bit more layered than that.  Let's start by acknowledging a couple rumors:

- Supposedly Kyrie wasn't too thrilled about the Cavs adding LeBron in the first place.  Supposedly he wasn't part of the recruiting party. 

- There's some rumors that Kyrie wanted to leave the Cavs immediately following their championship.

My read on this is that Kyrie is wired in a similar way to Paul Pierce.  Like Pierce, Kyrie is at best a top 15-25 player in the league, but knows he can't progress to his max potential if he puts a ceiling on himself.  These type of guys tell themselves they can be the best player in the world, because that's the type of confidence they need to be successful.  Kyrie himself basically confirmed this earlier in the year when he admitted that back in his youth he pushed back on LeBron's leadership, because he wanted to be the star of the show and be the one to lead the team - something of which he now admits with immature of him.   Obviously, hearing Kyrie admit that sure does contradict the premise of this post, but let's look at what was actually going on when Kyrie asked out:

- The Cavs had just got their assed kicked in the Finals by an unbeatable Warriors team built around 4 All-NBA players.

- The story dropped that LeBron was hell-bent on joining Los Angeles when the final year of his contract ended.  Essentially saying it was a "done deal".

- The relationship between LeBron and Cleveland ownership continued to be icy.  There had been articles all season that there was conflict between the two.

- Cavs owner Dan Gilbert and GM David Griffin were reportedly not on the same page.

- The Cavs started shopping Kyrie.

The last part is key.  It was now an open secret that LeBron was gone and had no intention of staying in Cleveland after his final season.   It was also now readily apparent that Cleveland in their current state was incapable of beating the Warriors.  From the perspective of Cavs management, that put them in a tricky position.  For their part, they started desperately trying to find moves that could improve the team enough to get LeBron to commit long-term.  Names like Paul George and Jimmy Butler were available at the time.  Could getting one of them keep LeBron?  Initially, they tried figuring out deals that could get one of them without giving up Kyrie (using Kevin Love as a trade asset).  When that proved to be a dead end, Kyrie's name got floated in a deal that would have landed the Cavs with Eric Bledsoe and Paul George. 

According to articles, management approached LeBron with the potential deal that would net the Cavs George/Bledsoe for Kyrie - something they were prepared to pull the trigger on only if LeBron agreed to stay long-term.  LeBron refused.  Keep in mind, from Cleveland's perspective it would be insane to give up Kyrie (who had two years left on his deal) for Paul George (an expiring contract) unless they knew it would guarantee LeBron staying.  Of course, we now know in retrospect that the "LeBron to Los Angeles" buzz was entirely accurate - and there was likely nothing they could do to keep him in that dumpsterfire Cavs organization.   Naturally, word got back to Kyrie the Cleveland was "shopping him" and he was p---ed.  It was within a few days of this that Kyrie officially asked for a trade.  In the midst of this, David Griffin lost his job.

Consider Kyrie Irving's perspective at this point.  He knew the Cavs were "shopping him".  He knew the team didn't have a reasonable chance of beating the Warriors.  He knew the upcoming season was going to be filled with non-stop questions about LeBron's free agency.   It's also safe to say that Kyrie knew LeBron was as good as gone.   

Try to imagine how this would have played out for Kyrie had he not asked for a trade.  There's two ways it ends up:

- Scenario 1:  Cavs ship off Kyrie to some random team.  The narrative is that Cleveland dumped him for a better player.

- Scenario 2:  He sticks around on a team with no real chance of beating the Warriors.  The entire season is focused on Bron's free agency.  In the aftermath, Kyrie is stuck on a crappy Cavs team with no realistic hope of improving - and a fanbase that would never love him like they loved LeBron.   So probably a 35-45 win team in 2018-19 - and then he bails Cleveland Summer 2019 and gets painted a villain for cowardly abandoning them. 

Kyrie "demanding a trade" was brilliant from a marketing standpoint.  It put Kyrie front-and-center of NBA news at the time - and allowed him to twist the narrative into him "choosing the harder path" (essentially the anti-Durant). 

That said, in a podcast with Bill Simmons, Kyrie admitted that he still didn't have much control over where he landed.  When asked what he had been looking for, he admitted that it was important to him to play on a team with other great players that he could see himself on for a while.  He said he was happy that Boston was the team that got him, because of their existing core and ability to add additional great talent. 

Why Kyrie liked going to Boston:   No, it wasn't because Kyrie had a chance to be "the man".   The truth is, Boston was an appealing destination for the following reasons:

- They already had an all-star on board in Al Horford.   

- They had just signed Gordon Hayward - an all-star in his prime that complimented Kyrie beautifully on paper.

- Boston had loads of assets to offer for a player like Jimmy Butler or Kawhi Leonard.

Being "the man" in Boston isn't what Kyrie found appealing.  The team was appealing, because they were a step away from having a 4-star team that could potentially compete with the Warriors.

Seriously, at that point it was totally reasonable to imagine us ending up the Warriors East.  Kyrie our Steph.  Horford our Draymond.  Hayward our Klay.  And then the team had all the assets (Recently drafted Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Kings pick, Memphis pick, etc) to go out and add a 4th star.   THAT is what was exciting about Boston.  THAT is what Kyrie "signed up for". 

So what happened?:  Well, we know what Kyrie ended up with instead.  Safe it say it is NOT what he thought he was getting himself into when Boston traded for him. 

- Horford, while good, is a fringe all-star at this point in his career.   

- Hayward got completely wiped out of the equation.  Last season, Hayward was somewhere on the spectrum between net negative and role player.  There's a chance he can improve next year, but it's fair to say that the type of impact he made this season could have been a role filled by a player on a vet minimum contract.

- We passed on Paul George.  We passed on Jimmy Butler.  We passed on Kawhi Leonard.  I understand Boston's perspective on this... why risk bringing on an expiring contract star when you can wait and go all-in on an expiring contract superstar like Davis in Summer 2019.  From Kyrie's perspective, it must have been maddening.  Instead of playing with a 4th star, Kyrie was stuck with hot-head inconsistent kids with inflated egos from their flukey 2018 playoff run and a clusterdump roster built around too many small forwards and players gunning for paydays.

Instead of playing on a team with 3 other stars, Kyrie ended up playing on an immature team in which arguably the 3rd best player was Marcus Morris - a career role player/borderline starter.

Fans somehow think this is what Kyrie signed up for.  It absolutely isn't.  Kyrie didn't come to Boston for a chance to play with Al Horford, Marcus Morris, and inconsistent immature kids.   He never came here with the intention of trying to carry a mediocre roster.  Fact is, he had very little say in coming to Boston at all, but admits he "had some leverage" in where he ended up.  Safe to say, he liked the idea of Boston, because he thought he'd be playing with other young stars. 

I mean, even if you dismiss the "4 star Celtic" concept as outlandish (it absolutely wasn't), at the very least he probably expected he'd have a reliable 2nd option next to him.   Think about that... Boston didn't even have a reliable 2nd option.  This isn't a knock on Horford, an everyman borderline star, but he doesn't fit that role at all.  Consider that a player like Damian Lillard at least has CJ McCollum - a dynamic scorer who averages 21-23 points while shooting 46%/40%/84%.   Who did Kyrie have?   Tatum shows promise, but isn't ready and fans have been frustrated by his shot selection all year.  Brown, while popular, was awful the first half of the season and remains a player who is at his best when he has players create his offense for him.  Marcus Morris, a career role player, sucked for half of the season.

Bottom line is that Kyrie expected to have more help here.  The funny thing is, if there was truth to Kyrie wanting to be "the man", it wouldn't make sense for LeBron's Lakers and Durant's Knicks to be the two frontrunners to sign him this offseason.  Truthfully, my stance on Kyrie hasn't changed at all since last Summer.  I always saw him as someone who could leave the Celtics.  I'd say that if this mediocre roster remains as-is, he's probably gone.  That said, if Boston can pull off adding a second star (Davis?  Beal?  Someone else?), the equation might change a bit.  I'd welcome Kyrie back.

[Chief Macho]

geezus.  what speculative nonsense.   none of that is true.

[wiley]

Great post and point.

And the reason I've viewed Lakers as Irving's best basketball move for months now.

People who say he can't go there because he burned that bridge are guilty of inventing that narrative...
So TP for bringing light to it...

And even if he "burned a bridge", people change their minds, change, grow up, have realizations of being wrong, etc..etc...all the time. For some reason sports fans think everything is written in stone.  Well, more exactly they fly too easily with false narratives. 

So good job LB.

EDIT:  now I'll read second half of your post.... 

[td450]

Whether he wants to be "the man", or your particular narrative is more accurate, the facts remain the same. He's someone who seems to react badly to a variation in circumstances. The Cleveland situation may have eventually gone south but he didn't know anything for sure at the time. He was just annoyed.

The C's weathered bad luck with Hayward, but that shouldn't alter your emotional makeup for very long.

If the only thing you changed about this year was that Kyrie appeared to have a reasonably positive influence on team culture and that he played in the playoffs roughly as well as he had during the season, and we lost to the Bucks in 6 or 7 games, almost all of this criticism would never have taken place.

[LarBrd33]

Whether he wants to be "the man", or your particular narrative is more accurate, the facts remain the same. He's someone who seems to react badly to a variation in circumstances. The Cleveland situation may have eventually gone south but he didn't know anything for sure at the time. He was just annoyed.

The C's weathered bad luck with Hayward, but that shouldn't alter your emotional makeup for very long.

If the only thing you changed about this year was that Kyrie appeared to have a reasonably positive influence on team culture and that he played in the playoffs roughly as well as he had during the season, and we lost to the Bucks in 6 or 7 games, almost all of this criticism would never have taken place.

I've said it for a while now, but there's nothing at all surprising about 1-star team built around a top 25 player winning 49 games and getting crushed by a 60 win Bucks team lead by a Phenom and a second all-star.

[keevsnick]

This is all really nice revisionist history, but what about the report of his preferred trade teams? Those teams were SAS, MIA, NYK, MIN and BOS. On 4 of those 5 he would have been the best player, and the only team other team that might have been good enough to up end the Warriors was the SAS. So it appears that Kyrie himself wasn't as focused on getting to a wining team as you would like to believe. And no team other than the SAS (if Kawhi had been healthy) would have given him a better shot than staying with LeBron.

The bottom line, whether you want  to admit it or not, is Kyrie got wind that Cleveland might be willing to move him and decided he wanted out. It wasn't to give himself a better chance at winning because no single pairing in the NBA would give him a better shot than with LeBron. Quite a few of his preferred teams had no history of winning, or were flat out bad at the time. I'm sure winning is something here would like to do, but it clearly wasn't his only priority.

Now, about the fact that you seem to be on a crusade to defend Kyrie against all criticism and rewrite history  to fit that narrative. The guy is a bad teammate. We saw that this year, we've seen reports about his time in Clevland. The guy is a bad leader. He himself admitted as much. Its okay to acknowledge these things. its doesn't mean we shouldn't keep him. It doesn't mean he can't grow in those areas. But this idea that Kyrie had little to no part in our struggles doesn't really help anybody.

[mr. dee]

Kyrie is in Sidney Wicks and Bob McAdoo territory. That's all I have to say.

[nickagneta]

Kyrie is in Sidney Wicks and Bob McAdoo territory. That's all I have to say.

No...he really isn't. Kyrie is more like young Pierce or young Kobe. All three were great players when they were in their early and mid 20's and God awful leaders that rubbed people the wrong way. They needed to mature.

Kobe and Pierce became better team leaders in their late 20's and 30's because they did indeed mature and consequently, became better overall team leaders with more well rounded games that also played much better defense.

I can see Kyrie learning and growing this offseason both on and off the court. I can see Kyrie become a better leader one day because he failed so miserably at it this year. Live and learn. At least, if he is re-signed, that will be my hope

[RJ87]

Kyrie is in Sidney Wicks and Bob McAdoo territory. That's all I have to say.

No...he really isn't. Kyrie is more like young Pierce or young Kobe. All three were great players when they were in their early and mid 20's and God awful leaders that rubbed people the wrong way. They needed to mature.

Kobe and Pierce became better team leaders in their late 20's and 30's because they did indeed mature and consequently, became better overall team leaders with more well rounded games that also played much better defense.

I can see Kyrie learning and growing this offseason both on and off the court. I can see Kyrie become a better leader one day because he failed so miserably at it this year. Live and learn. At least, if he is re-signed, that will be my hope

No, no, no. Who you are at age 26 and 27 is who you're going to be the rest of your life. Personal growth is a myth.

[td450]

Kyrie is in Sidney Wicks and Bob McAdoo territory. That's all I have to say.

No...he really isn't. Kyrie is more like young Pierce or young Kobe. All three were great players when they were in their early and mid 20's and God awful leaders that rubbed people the wrong way. They needed to mature.

Kobe and Pierce became better team leaders in their late 20's and 30's because they did indeed mature and consequently, became better overall team leaders with more well rounded games that also played much better defense.

I can see Kyrie learning and growing this offseason both on and off the court. I can see Kyrie become a better leader one day because he failed so miserably at it this year. Live and learn. At least, if he is re-signed, that will be my hope

Problem is, he's not quite that good a player. He's an incredible scorer, and a decent passer. Pierce could do more than he can, and we know Kobe was in a different category.

Pierce got lucky. The C's brought in two perfect compliments. He got to stay the man on offense and take the big shots. Garnett and him combined were perfect for each other.

At best its a coin flip that he and AD develop chemistry. The odds are probably lower than that. AD is not Garnett.

[Pvictor11]

Kyrie is in Sidney Wicks and Bob McAdoo territory. That's all I have to say.

No...he really isn't. Kyrie is more like young Pierce or young Kobe. All three were great players when they were in their early and mid 20's and God awful leaders that rubbed people the wrong way. They needed to mature.

Kobe and Pierce became better team leaders in their late 20's and 30's because they did indeed mature and consequently, became better overall team leaders with more well rounded games that also played much better defense.

I can see Kyrie learning and growing this offseason both on and off the court. I can see Kyrie become a better leader one day because he failed so miserably at it this year. Live and learn. At least, if he is re-signed, that will be my hope

No, no, no. Who you are at age 26 and 27 is who you're going to be the rest of your life. Personal growth is a myth.

Are you serious? At first I thought you were being ironic, but I'm not sure about it.

[mr. dee]

Kyrie is in Sidney Wicks and Bob McAdoo territory. That's all I have to say.

No...he really isn't. Kyrie is more like young Pierce or young Kobe. All three were great players when they were in their early and mid 20's and God awful leaders that rubbed people the wrong way. They needed to mature.

Kobe and Pierce became better team leaders in their late 20's and 30's because they did indeed mature and consequently, became better overall team leaders with more well rounded games that also played much better defense.

I can see Kyrie learning and growing this offseason both on and off the court. I can see Kyrie become a better leader one day because he failed so miserably at it this year. Live and learn. At least, if he is re-signed, that will be my hope

No, no, no. Who you are at age 26 and 27 is who you're going to be the rest of your life. Personal growth is a myth.

Bob McAdoo and Sydney Wicks were as the same age as Kyrie when they joined Boston.

[GreenFaith1819]

Great Read.

God I hope Kyrie Irving comes back. This team WILL get better.

[ozgod]

TP, totally agree.

[Androslav]

TP no. 2000 for your effort and invested brainpower.