When Kyrie Irving was traded from the Cavaliers to the Celtics it was done so with risk on the part of Boston. When Irving demanded a trade, Boston was not on his list of preferred destinations. The NBA champion point guard still had a couple years before he was expected to be a free agent, so the Celtics would get him for at least two seasons, but they knew they were going to have to sell him on the team’s culture and identity.
It didn’t take long for Irving to buy in. Despite an injury shortened first season in Boston, Irving saw the potential he had with the Celtics as his team fought its way to the Eastern Conference Finals. Shortly after being eliminated, Irving made it clear what he wanted to do. He was going to stay with the Celtics and try to build something worth remembering in Boston.
Irving has yet to sign a new deal, because financially it makes more sense for him to opt out of the final year of his contract and then re-sign with the Celtics that way, but don’t expect to wait long on a deal. He’s already been in discussions with the front office and in a sit down interview with Shams Charania of Stadium, he re-affirmed his desire to stay in Boston.
He went so far as to call the decision easy.
Full one-on-one w/ Kyrie Irving: On challenging himself, embracing being a face of Celtics, at times “very lonely” leadership, parting with the Cavaliers, his future and more — “It almost scares me in terms of the potential of me at the start of my prime.” pic.twitter.com/ouoRmakywZ
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) November 8, 2018
“It was pretty easy man. I had a lot of considerations going elsewhere. You wanna keep your options open, you wanna think about the future, but at the end of the day I started honing in on what meant the most to me and that was having a future here in Boston, having great teammates, having a great training staff, having a great coaching staff, having great upper management, and most importantly it’s being connected to an incredible incredible culture that has existed way before me and will exist after me and I wanted to be part of that. It was the same conversation I had with my Dad when I went to Duke. Same conversation I had when I was a St. Patrick Celtic. It’s the next challenge of my career and I need to handle it face on.”
Irving is someone that seems to value tradition and success. If that’s the case, then there are few places better for him than Boston. The Celtics organization isn’t just successful. It’s legendary. Irving gets to be a part of that history and there’s a certain mystique that comes with wearing a Celtics jersey. One that he can really appreciate.
That said, it helps that the Celtics immediately continued winning when he arrived despite injuries. He also had one of the best seasons of his career in his first year in Boston. It’s hard for Irving to not want to stay in a place where everything is working out so well for him. Most players don’t show their hand this early in the free agency process, because like Irving said they want to keep their options open, but as he said this is an easy decision for everybody involved. Irving will re-sign in the summer and it’s going to be painless. The results of this season are inconsequential, or at least so it seems.
