Prior to his season coming to an unceremonious end due to knee surgery, Kyrie Irving was absolutely fantastic during his first year with the Boston Celtics. Of course, Irving’s injury was the kind of thing that you’d expect would derail a team, but the Celtics persevered and made it all the way to a Game 7 in the Eastern Conference Finals before falling to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
It led to some people wondering about Irving’s future in Boston, not necessarily during this offseason, but when his contract is up at the conclusion of the 2018-19 campaign (assuming he turn down his player option worth a little over $21 million). The team is also reportedly worried that Irving might decide to seek — pun not intended — greener pastures once he becomes a free agent.
Irving was asked about his future by Sopan Deb in the New York Times. Deb tweeted out Irving’s answer, as it was cut from his interview in which Irving explained his many thoughts about the shape of the earth.
https://twitter.com/SopanDeb/status/1005273144901492736
It’ll be interesting to watch how the Celtics operate next summer should Irving opt out, as he’ll hit the open market as Terry Rozier becomes a free agent, too. Rozier performed admirably in the postseason, and if Boston doesn’t want to fork over a likely max contract to Irving, perhaps Danny Ainge and co. would rather pay a little less to make Rozier their starting point guard. Or maybe they just keep Irving around. As he says, it’s not especially clear what his future holds right now.
