The Cleveland Cavaliers still hope they can salvage their relationship with Kyrie Irving, but the latest report about the point guard’s time in Cleveland makes that seem much less likely.
ESPN reporter Dave McMenamin spoke about Irving on The BBall Breakdown Podcast and said there were times during the postseason where Irving would go days without speaking to one of his teammates.
“I think I reported this on SportsCenter this week. He saw Kyrie Irving in the playoffs this year – in between the first round, when they beat Indiana, and the second round, when they played Toronto – go consecutive days without speaking to a teammate at practice.
On that stage. It’s one thing to say people go through their ups and downs in the regular season. But when you get to the playoffs, “when the main thing is the main thing, and we’re brothers, and we’re pulling together to get this thing done” – even at that level, there were still things that made him sullen or reclusive from his teammates.”
That silence could have been without malice, but it does seem like a strange thing to do that deep into the postseason. And it’s certainly a long way away from the group text message thread story we heard during the postseason, which was apparently a sign that the team was coming together as a unit. At that time, the source of disunity was supposed to be Kevin Love. Now it appears there was a lot more going on there than we initially thought.
(via NBC Sports)
