How many here actually believe Kyrie sabotaged the team last year?

[jbpats]

Sabotaged no.. but checked out and killed our locker room, so in that regard maybe an unintentional sabotage.

I absolutely blame him for the disaster  that was last season.

[slamtheking]

I don't think he sabotaged the team.  I think he overestimated his abilities and decided to take on the Bucks singlehandedly in games 2-4 resulting in losses and then just resigned to mail it in for game 5 to get on with his departure plans

[footey]

Sabotage calls for the action taken to be a deliberate attempt to hurt the team. What Kyrie did wasn't a deliberate act of sabotage.

What he did was he mentally checked out and decided the best way for him to help the team was to stop playing within the constructs of the team. I know, sounds stupid but I am not sure Kyrie is the brightest bulb in the package. 

He played individual street ball and not NBA team ball and because of that the team failed. I think Kyrie deliberately played the way he did but thought he was helping the team not hurting it.

That's not sabotage. That's just being not very smart and being a terrible leader of men.

Well stated, Nick. TP.

[satch]

U have to care before could sabotage something.

[Roy H.]

I have a hard time getting to “actively sabotaged”.  I’ll settle for “mentally quit and played lazy, stupid basketball”.

Pretty much what nick said more eloquently above.

[Alleyoopster]

In fact, why is this even in Celtics talk?

He's not with the Celtics.

He's with the Nets. This should be moved to the Around the NBA sub-section of the forum......

Nothing good will come out of this thread.

Agree, time to move on.

Get the feeling many here watched a different series than myself.

Milwaukee simply had a great game plan and executed it to perfection.

We had no answer to Giannis, their outside shooters couldn't miss and the taller defenders swarmed all over Irving.

He also was coming off injuries in April. His ankle I think. I doubt he was 100% healthy. Add to that all the rest of the Celtics players fell asleep after game one.

Time to give Milwaukee some credit fkr playing well and to spread the blame to other players as well for the Celtics losing.

[colincb]

No. He's just not as good as Ainge and many others thought he was. Certainly not a #1 option on a championship team which I think he believes.

Irving, Tatum, Hayward, and Rozier all sucked that series BTW and we had a number of injuries to rotation players.

[RockinRyA]

Sabotaged, no. Wasn't the perfect fit yeah. I believe he definitely quit in the Bucks series after game 1.

[Phantom255x]

He wasn't the only one, but he was definitely one of the main guys who sabotaged the team (and coaches too).

And yes, he 1000% quit on the team after Game 3 of the Bucks series. Guy shot poorly that game, said he'd do better and then ended up doing worse the next two games while noticeably screwing the team and going against the wishes of Brad Stevens (ex. electing to defend Giannis 1-on-1 like he did in Games 3-5 AND those fadeaway 3-point attempts with like 15 seconds left in the shotclock).

[SHAQATTACK]

i don't think itwas planned .  But he did quit the Celtics during the Bucks series ...i ll never believe different , it was blatantly obvious he was done as a Celtic .

[ozgod]

By mailing it in against the bucks. Celts dominated them in game 1, then Kyrie starts taking all the shots and shoots an abysmal 30% the rest of the series. Athletes are generally very prideful people so it’s hard to imagine one pulling a stunt like that, but then again it’s kyrie we’re talking about here. Did he already have his mind made up about going to Brooklyn and just didn’t want to advance any further?

Don't think he did it by choice. He probably decided he was going to show Brad his way was better, that he could carry the team himself, and failed.

[GreenFaith1819]

Entire organization was sabotaged last year....and it was no one's at fault singularly for it.

1. Sabotaged by Danny stockpiling talent to attempt to pull of another KG-like trade for AD. This lead to too many mouths to feed last year...and a few egos.

(Let me add that with the ABOVE comment Danny Ainge did what ANY good GM would do - not his fault that AD would not commit to BOS full-term.)

BUT - if AD "HAD" committed how many of us REALLY believe that we'd have Jaylen, Jayson, Smart or ANY of our draft picks right now...........no one knows who was going out the door in this trade but it would've been a LOT....

2. Sabotaged by GH needing a little more time to heal and get his legs under him. We've found out THIS YEAR that he's been worth the wait.

(BUT - with the above comment - Kyrie Irving - who's already in the past alluded to WANTING to play with Gordon Hayward - NEEDED and HOPED that GH WOULD in fact be back LAST YEAR. "IF" he was then I'm pretty sure the pecking order would've been established and we would have a CLEAR "Big Three"



That "WAS" the plan - and it was an EXCITING plan and one that was supposed to make us contenders. MANY of us bit off on this and for GOOD reason. "THAT" pecking order would've kept the Roziers, the Morris's on the bench a bit more and helped to define THEIR roles better BUT would've probably held back The Jays a bit.....QUITE a bit...

3. Sabotaged by Kyrie being a capable (but at times immature) leader. He's even admitted to this and stated that he failed BOS already. This immaturity - at times - spilled out into the open with the dogging of his teammates and coach at times.

We already KNOW the talent IS THERE with Kyrie. But I forgive him for last year. He ADMITTED his failings.

In the end - I believe MANY people were at fault - but then NO ONE was....

Can't fault Rozier for his selfishness at times...he believed BETTER for himself. He proved it (somewhat) with his play in 2017-18.

Can't fault Morris - he was perhaps our most consistent player last year. Coach Stevens even stated this.

Can't fault Danny - he did what any prudent GM would do and had the wheels in motion to pull off another blockbuster trade - like for KG...

AD didn't want to play.

In the end - with where we are NOW? It all turned out ok, I believe.

[CF033]

Kyrie had a terrible series, but I didn’t see someone that checked out or threw in the towel.  If anything, he tried to play hero ball by forcing shots rather than playing within himself.

I saw it as Kyrie creating shots for himself that he knew he had no chance of making.  More of a sabotage than trying to be a hero.

I think you have to really hate the guy to truly believe this.

I don't hate him.  I really think he wasn't trying to make all of his shots though- some attempts were so haphazard it didn't seem like he really cared if they went in.

I agree with this... He looked like he wasn't even trying to make half the shots he was taking judging by his form/body language. I think he was discouraged, knew he was Brooklyn bound and didn't want to be in Boston any longer.

But none of us really know what was going on. It's all just speculation.

[liam]

ftp://

I have a hard time getting to “actively sabotaged”.  I’ll settle for “mentally quit and played lazy, stupid basketball”.

Pretty much what nick said more eloquently above.

Ding, Ding, Ding!

I go with this! Quit on the team in The Bucks series. I've never seen another Celtic player ( with the exception of Mark Blount) just quit on a Celtics team....

[Celtics4ever]

I think he quit on the team