If not for the woes of the Los Angeles Lakers, the Boston Celtics would be receiving even more attention but, even with something else to distract the basketball world, Kyrie Irving and company are drawing plenty of headlines. That comes with the territory on the heels of five losses in six games, but things came to a head this week when Irving made comments about basketball and celebrity, and teammate Jaylen Brown said the situation in Boston is currently “toxic” in nature.
The sledding doesn’t get any easier for Brad Stevens’ team on Tuesday when they take on the Golden State Warriors. In advance of that highly-publicized contest, the good folks at TNT discussed Boston’s plight, and Shaquille O’Neal shared some insight from his perspective as a guy who was a face of a franchise during his career.
"As a superstar, the best decision I ever made in my life was to let the young dogs play."
Shaq weighs in on Kyrie and the Celtics pic.twitter.com/P3O4ZV0hpW
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) March 6, 2019
Shaq is, of course, uniquely qualified to address this kind of situation, and he references his time in Orlando (alongside Penny Hardaway) and Los Angeles (alongside Kobe Bryant) as a result. Much has been made of the potential problem with Boston’s young players not growing with Irving at the helm this season, especially after the way their youthful nucleus came together without the All-Star point guard in last season’s playoffs. O’Neal’s assertion that Irving simply needs to “let the young dogs play” speaks to that, even without full knowledge of everything happening behind the scenes.
If nothing else, the Celtics remain a very talented team with a very capable head coach and, despite the uptick from contenders at the top of the Eastern Conference, Boston is capable of making a run if they can right the ship. It probably isn’t as simply as Shaq makes it here but, in the same breath, he would know better than most.
