Last season, the Boston Celtics were expected to be among the favorites to win the NBA championship after a 55-win 2017-18 campaign that ended in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals at the hands of LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers — a series that Kyrie Irving wasn’t available for due to a knee injury he suffered that March.
Naturally, Celtics fans were optimistic that Irving — the same player that hit one of the biggest Game 7 shots in NBA Finals history — would be the difference this time around, but that didn’t end up being the case. The team was up and down during the regular season, and in five games before losing to the Milwaukee Bucks during the playoffs, Irving averaged 20.4 points per game on 35.6 percent shooting from the field, including 21.9 percent shooting from behind the arc.
Irving has shouldered much of the blame for last year’s underwhelming year in Beantown, but former Celtics teammate Jayson Tatum doesn’t think the criticism should fall solely on him. During an interview with Maria Taylor of ESPN, Tatum said there’s plenty of blame to go around for how the Celtics underperformed, going as far as to say Irving doesn’t deserve any of it:
“It’s not Kyrie’s fault. There was 15 guys on that team and coaches and a front office. Everybody played a part in that and I feel like he gets a lot of blame, undeservingly. He’s a great person, we still have a great relationship, he helped me out a lot — on and off the court — in my first two years that I’m thankful for. He shouldn’t get all the blame, or any of the blame.”
Irving’s time in Boston was centered around the idea that the Celtics were his team, which seemed to have worked out initially, but as time went on, issues arose. There was a path to the Celtics being a title contender last season, but that path and the one that played out were different, and ultimately, it led to the Celtics and Irving divorcing this summer.
