Kyrie Irving knows that his Boston Celtics haven’t achieved the level of success that was expected of them preseason. After making the conference finals the last two seasons, including last year with mostly the same roster, the Celtics sit in a tie with the Philadelphia 76ers for the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference.
Unlike most contenders who fill in players on the margins as they build towards a championship-level team, Boston essentially added two All-Stars to a roster that had already come within one game of the NBA Finals. That naturally lessened the role of each individual Celtic, and has led to some hard feelings along the way.
The 2016-17 Warriors showed that superstar integration was no big deal as they cruised to a title in their first season with Kevin Durant, but they have proven to be the exception, not the rule. Nevertheless, Irving still believes his team can be more than what it has shown thus far, even if the motivation of individual players is part of the problem.
“We have a bunch of young men in our locker room that feel they’re capable of doing a lot more than what they’re doing,” Irving told Rachel Nichols.
Kyrie Irving sits down to talk about the Celtics' "trying" season: "we have a bunch of young men in our locker room who feel they're capable of doing a lot more than they're doing." We also talked free agency, the LeBron phone call, & how anger can fester if you don't address it pic.twitter.com/VGNqkifWnk
— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) February 20, 2019
Those “young men” Irving refers to include Jaylen Brown, who has been relegated to a bench role after starting all of last season, and Terry Rozier, who was Boston’s point guard during its playoff run but now backs up Irving. It’s particularly challenging for Rozier to deal with a demotion as he heads into restricted free agency this offseason.
“I’m 26 years old heading into my prime, why do I have to wait for anybody? Terry Rozier, he played in the playoffs, he did extremely well — that’s a natural competition that me and him have,” Irving said. “No one wants to say it, but I will.”
Irving has taken it upon himself to vocalize the disagreements existing within the locker room because his time in Cleveland led him to realize these hurt feelings can fester and blow up later. He believes much of the drama on teams comes from people not talking to one another, but rather reading what the media reports they have said about each other.
It’s an earnest argument, but one that’s rendered somewhat counterintuitive by the fact that Irving has occasionally aired out his team’s dirty laundry before talking to his teammates directly. The 26-year-old claims he has learned a great deal about being a leader, both through his own experience with the Celtics and by observing LeBron James, but there’s still a ways to go as Irving tries to lead Boston back to the promised land.
