Great article summarizing how kyrie Was conning Boston the entire time he was here, especially his 2nd season here:
https://985thesportshub.com/2019/07/01/in-golden-age-of-boston-sports-kyrie-irving-will-go-down-as-greatest-conman/Here's a part:
Just one year into the con, Irving decided to tell an arena full of Celtics fans that he would re-sign in Boston following the conclusion of the 2018-19 season. It was as perfect a moment as Irving and the Celtics could have asked for, really, as he essentially calmed a year of worrying. He even filmed a Nike commercial with his father, concluding the ad by saying that he wanted to be the last Celtic to wear No. 11. But
just four months later, Kyrie told the world that what he planned to do in the summer wasn't any of our business, and that we would have to ask him on July 1. Fast forward to that date and Irving's July 1 Instagram post, with him dribbling a basketball on the Brooklyn Bridge and fawning over returning home "where he always wanted to be," sang a much different tune than the October line that earned him a standing ovation.When we read into Irving and Kevin Durant clearly talking about "two max slots" at the 2019 NBA All-Star Game, connecting the dots that we all had a feeling would lead them to New York, Irving snapped (because he got busted), got back on his fake-deep nonsense, and scolded us that the Internet is not real. It was just two friends talking about life. Friends! Like his shoes and tattoo! But Kyrie reportedly followed Durant around during the NBA Playoffs, and Durant signed with the Nets when free agency officially began. Not real though! Just two normal dudes hanging out, chatting, casually talking about how they're going to leave their then-current teams high and dry in the summer while also demanding respect from their current cities.
Then there was Irving getting mad about a national TV camera filming him as he walked into TD Garden before a nationally-televised game against the Rockets this season. Irving, who 'didn't care' that he swore into a hot mic, made it known that he was excited to no longer be filmed by cameras once he was done playing. He wanted us to know he didn't sign up for cameras filming him. But Irving's Uncle Drew full-length movie hit theaters last summer, and Irving had announced that he was going to both star in and produce a movie about a haunted hotel in Oklahoma City just a month before the blowup. Makes sense.
You could almost live with all that off-court nonsense and sometimes-overblown drama (this is the NBA, after all), so long as Irving made good on his promise to be the No. 1 piece of a championship-level team in Boston.
Well.
Winning with Irving as the focal point of your team seemed doable at times, especially in Irving's first season. But as things got truly serious for the win-now Green, the Celtics emerged as an undeniably better team without Irving. I thought this was insane when it was first floated out there when the Celtics posted a 12-3 record with Irving out of action during the 2018-19 regular season, but the Celtics won 11 playoff games without Irving in 2018, and just five (four of which came against an Oladipo-less Pacers team, so how could you possibly care or put any sort of stock in its meaning with him as their No. 1 in 2019. The teams and their competition were different, but Irving was supposed to be the piece to put you over the edge. He thought he was, too; when people questioned why the Celtics would be OK in an undeniably up-and-down season Irving cockily responded "because I'm here." But from the moment the Celtics went up 1-0 in their second-round series against the Bucks, ready to make every idiot with a hot take look like exactly that, Irving was downright dreadful, converting on just 25 of the next 83 shots heaved on net. They were bad shots, too. He was a liability.
When pressed on those struggles hurting the team's chances to dig their way out of a series deficit, Irving offered an absurd "who cares?" and suggested that he should shoot even more.And as emotional detachment set in en route to a season-ending loss, all Irving said was that he was excited to watch the Bucks continue their postseason run. Yikes. "Because I'm here" turned out to be the exact reason why the Celtics were not OK.
Topic: In golden age of Boston sports, Kyrie Irving will go down as greatest conman (Read 6451 times)