The Kyrie thread - he probably doesnt bleed green

[The_Ghost_of_JB]

It would be a failure but smart teams can bounce back from a FA loss, look at how quickly the Clippers bounced back after dismantling Lob City.

What do you consider back though? An 8th seed getting bounced in the first round? Sure if Irving walks Celtics could very well be an 8th seed and lose in the first round next year.

In the NBA has no place worse to finish than the 6th 7th or 8th seed. You're out of the lottery and you're almost guaranteed to get bounced in the first round because in the NBA especially in the first round lower seeds very really beat higher seeds.

The Rockets were that team not long ago.

True. I just don't want to sit are for the two or three years going back to being a 500 team fighting for an 8th seed.


I'm not going to sit here and tell you that Irving isn't completely and utterly insufferable because he is. In his mind he can never do wrong and he has turned into LeBron James except he isn't a top two player in the league. if I never heard him speak again that would be perfectly fine with me.

Still the guy does have talent and that is what wins in the league. Irving is part of the problem but this roster is clearly flawed. Too many small forwards and too many egos in too many guys who are inconsistent on offense.

[Froob]

What do you consider back though? An 8th seed getting bounced in the first round? Sure if Irving walks Celtics could very well be an 8th seed and lose in the first round next year.

In the NBA has no place worse to finish than the 6th 7th or 8th seed. You're out of the lottery and you're almost guaranteed to get bounced in the first round because in the NBA especially in the first round lower seeds very really beat higher seeds.

The Rockets were that team not long ago.

True. I just don't want to sit are for the two or three years going back to being a 500 fighting for an 8th seed.


I'm not going to sit here and tell you that Irving isn't completely and utterly insufferable because he is. In his mind he can never do wrong and he has turned into LeBron James except he isn't a top two player in the league. if I never heard him speak again that would be perfectly fine with me.

Still the guy does have talent and that is what wins in the league. Irving is part of the problem but this roster is clearly flawed. Too many small forwards and too many egos in too many guys who are inconsistent on offense.

At least when Rondo was weird, it was genuine. When we’re winning whatever, but his whole act is annoying. Thinks he’s LeBron but nowhere near as good. Maybe we get Davis and it works who knows..

[Ed Pinkney]

A team built around Horford/Healthy Hayward/Tatum/Brown/ Smart and a heap of draft assets is not some mediocre team whose ceiling is the 8th seed and a first round exit. That is ridiculous.

Irving's talent is undeniable. The question management needs to ask itself this offseason is if the chemistry issues and dysfunction that he clearly was a major (but not the only) contributing factor to this season is something that can be remedied next season. Especially with a significant part of the team from this season most likely returning next season, I don't seem them turning over 95% of the roster or changing the coach, even if they do manage to trade for Davis.

I think there is more than enough evidence that suggests Irving is going to be remain an up and down proposition for the rest of his career (even when he is in a good, winning situation), both in on court performance but also off court relationships/media interactions/personal distractions etc. Are the risks associated with that potentially damaging combination worth handing out a long term max contract? I am certainly leaning towards that answer being a no.

[MagicBagley18]

Giannis is a FA in 2021 and if we land him we could absolutely win a title the following year. KI leaving would be a set back but not the end of the world. He's an allstar not an MVP candidate.

Giannis isn’t coming here. Trying to deal with real possibilities. IF Giannis ever left it would be after the next extension. Not happening in 2021 the bucks are a team on the rise that could be in the finals as soon as this year.

“Real possibilities” followed by you claiming to know how things will unfold 2+ years from now lol. Allstars and MVP candidates leave their teams and they do it in their prime. Plan A should still be Irving and Davis. If Irving walks we should absolute target Giannis. Hayward and Horford are off the books by then. Danny obviously would need to do some work to pull it off. If not Giannis who? You gonna punt 4-5 seasons before you even try and compete?

Yes. Real possibilities like re-signing a player currently on our roster and trading for the player that we are heavily linked at as being a favorite for. Not praying and hoping that a player who hasn’t even entered his prime yet is going to leave a team he is nothing but happy with and trending in the right direction.

Look at his these things play out- they usually sign the major supermax get that FU mogul money and try to win with the current team. Then at 27-28 if they haven’t won they are staring at wasting the rest of prime years and they demand a trade.

You can target Giannis all you want....I would too. It doesn’t mean it’s likely. We have a REAL chance this summer here and now to get a top 5 guy paired with kyrie.

[truth18]

All this leadership and toxic chemistry talk about Kyrie is bull.

He sucked on court. He was selfish ON COURT. He let the uncalled hand-checking get to him mentally when he should have just dealt with it. Those are the issues: basketball, not media ****.

And a lot of other dudes sucked last night too. We just **** suck. So sick of people obsessed with the NBA media/players off court. The same type of people who believe Durant and Westbrook were ever friends of any sort are the people who care about this stuff.

I guarantee you Brown and Tatum dislike Gordon more than Kyrie for taking away their minutes for example, but even that isn't enough to cause real chemistry issues imo.

If you are going to hate on Kyrie do it for the right reasons. And I just want to say one more time: everyone here knew he had a F.R.I.E.N.D.S tattoo and thought the earth was flat when he signed here. This isn't Mark Price or some ****, you only have yourself to blame if you didn't understand that he's a different dude. It's all about his massive talent and upside, not the bull **** he says to reporters.

[jmr07019]

Giannis isn’t coming here. Trying to deal with real possibilities. IF Giannis ever left it would be after the next extension. Not happening in 2021 the bucks are a team on the rise that could be in the finals as soon as this year.

“Real possibilities” followed by you claiming to know how things will unfold 2+ years from now lol. Allstars and MVP candidates leave their teams and they do it in their prime. Plan A should still be Irving and Davis. If Irving walks we should absolute target Giannis. Hayward and Horford are off the books by then. Danny obviously would need to do some work to pull it off. If not Giannis who? You gonna punt 4-5 seasons before you even try and compete?

Yes. Real possibilities like re-signing a player currently on our roster and trading for the player that we are heavily linked at as being a favorite for. Not praying and hoping that a player who hasn’t even entered his prime yet is going to leave a team he is nothing but happy with and trending in the right direction.

Look at his these things play out- they usually sign the major supermax get that FU mogul money and try to win with the current team. Then at 27-28 if they haven’t won they are staring at wasting the rest of prime years and they demand a trade.

You can target Giannis all you want....I would too. It doesn’t mean it’s likely. We have a REAL chance this summer here and now to get a top 5 guy paired with kyrie.

Once again I will reiterate Irving / Davis should be plan A.

LeBron was 25 when he signed with Miami. Durant was 27 when he signed in GSW and you're hoping to trade for a 26 year old Davis. In 2021 Giannis will be 26. Timeline seems right to me. Is that super max keeping Davis in New Orleans? Milwakee is very good. Cleveland and OKC made the finals before their MVP candidates bolted. Changing teams is the thing to do these days.

[The_Ghost_of_JB]

The Rockets were that team not long ago.

True. I just don't want to sit are for the two or three years going back to being a 500 fighting for an 8th seed.


I'm not going to sit here and tell you that Irving isn't completely and utterly insufferable because he is. In his mind he can never do wrong and he has turned into LeBron James except he isn't a top two player in the league. if I never heard him speak again that would be perfectly fine with me.

Still the guy does have talent and that is what wins in the league. Irving is part of the problem but this roster is clearly flawed. Too many small forwards and too many egos in too many guys who are inconsistent on offense.

At least when Rondo was weird, it was genuine. When we’re winning whatever, but his whole act is annoying. Thinks he’s LeBron but nowhere near as good. Maybe we get Davis and it works who knows..

Rondo was a strange dude no question, and he was arrogant but Irving is on another level. I didn't see any of his press conference but heard his clips on the radio and I couldn't believe what he was saying but that is who is is.

Obviously the bucks are all going to swarm him because he is the celtics best player. When they happens though and when he passes it guys HAVE to hit shots. Excluding Irving (who shot 1-7 for threes) the rest of the team was a combined 8-34. Connaughton alone outscored the bench and he had a whopping 9 points.

Irving was bad last night but the bench play is a travesty.

[Ed Pinkney]

All this leadership and toxic chemistry talk about Kyrie is bull.

He sucked on court. He was selfish ON COURT. He let the uncalled hand-checking get to him mentally when he should have just dealt with it. Those are the issues: basketball, not media ****.

And a lot of other dudes sucked last night too. We just **** suck. So sick of people obsessed with the NBA media/players off court. The same type of people who believe Durant and Westbrook were ever friends of any sort are the people who care about this stuff.

I guarantee you Brown and Tatum dislike Gordon more than Kyrie for taking away their minutes for example, but even that isn't enough to cause real chemistry issues imo.

If you are going to hate on Kyrie do it for the right reasons. And I just want to say one more time: everyone here knew he had a F.R.I.E.N.D.S tattoo and thought the earth was flat when he signed here. This isn't Mark Price or some ****, you only have yourself to blame if you didn't understand that he's a different dude. It's all about his massive talent and upside, not the bull **** he says to reporters.

The off-court/personality stuff certainly does matter if it is a major contributing factor in turning what should be a 55-60 win team with championship expectations into an unlikeable loser who gets steamrolled in the playoffs and don't seem to care enough to do anything about it.

How much of that is on Irving, both on and off the court? That is hard to quantify. It is hard to argue he not a significant contributing factor though.

[truth18]

All this leadership and toxic chemistry talk about Kyrie is bull.

He sucked on court. He was selfish ON COURT. He let the uncalled hand-checking get to him mentally when he should have just dealt with it. Those are the issues: basketball, not media ****.

And a lot of other dudes sucked last night too. We just **** suck. So sick of people obsessed with the NBA media/players off court. The same type of people who believe Durant and Westbrook were ever friends of any sort are the people who care about this stuff.

I guarantee you Brown and Tatum dislike Gordon more than Kyrie for taking away their minutes for example, but even that isn't enough to cause real chemistry issues imo.

If you are going to hate on Kyrie do it for the right reasons. And I just want to say one more time: everyone here knew he had a F.R.I.E.N.D.S tattoo and thought the earth was flat when he signed here. This isn't Mark Price or some ****, you only have yourself to blame if you didn't understand that he's a different dude. It's all about his massive talent and upside, not the bull **** he says to reporters.

The off-court/personality stuff certainly does matter if it is a major contributing factor in turning what should be a 55-60 win team with championship expectations into an unlikeable loser who gets steamrolled in the playoffs and don't seem to care enough to do anything about it.

How much of that is on Irving, both on and off the court? That is hard to quantify. It is hard to argue he not a significant contributing factor though.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I know more about what's actually going on with this team than you do and if Kyrie is causing any chemistry issues, you/the public do not know what they are and they certainly have nothing to do with dumb media comments.

And let's just say Kyrie is a complete dick at all times to the rest of the team: that's still not enough to cause chemistry issues if you have normal NBA players that aren't tissue paper soft. These guys either care too much about their money, their pride, winning or some mixture of all of those things to not try to win and play their roles.

We just sucked at basketball against a really good team and didn't adjust. Brad/the coaching staff didnt have us ready either.

[GoCeltics123]

To echo what truth said about this team, a lot of the issues this season fall on Brad. In fact, most do.

However, Kyrie isn't blameless, of course; off-court stuff aside, as a superstar you need to rise to the occasion in the playoffs, and outside of the Indy series, he hasn't.

I've been a supporter of his for a while, but what turned me off to him in some ways now is his poor playoff play.

And, like what has been said, we suck but at the same time Kyrie wanted a team like this; young talent, built around him, he's the guy. He could've handled it better. But he's also blamed too much.

[Floody100]

Funny how a whole season can change everything. I remember talks of us trading Irving for Kawhi at the start of the season but those talks were brushed of because we all thought that Kawhi was a lot more of a chance to go to LA this off season than Kyrie was to leave Boston.
A season later & theirs more of a chance that Kyrie leaves & Kawhi stays in Toronto. What could of been if we just made the trade.

[truth18]

Funny how a whole season can change everything. I remember talks of us trading Irving for Kawhi at the start of the season but those talks were brushed of because we all thought that Kawhi was a lot more of a chance to go to LA this off season than Kyrie was to leave Boston.
A season later & theirs more of a chance that Kyrie leaves & Kawhi stays in Toronto. What could of been if we just made the trade.

No. There were fictional talks of trading Brown plus picks for Kawhi when he was in San Antonio that a minority here including myself wanted to do despite the inevitability of him leaving.

I remember nothing of this Kawhi/Kyrie stuff.

[Ed Pinkney]

All this leadership and toxic chemistry talk about Kyrie is bull.

He sucked on court. He was selfish ON COURT. He let the uncalled hand-checking get to him mentally when he should have just dealt with it. Those are the issues: basketball, not media ****.

And a lot of other dudes sucked last night too. We just **** suck. So sick of people obsessed with the NBA media/players off court. The same type of people who believe Durant and Westbrook were ever friends of any sort are the people who care about this stuff.

I guarantee you Brown and Tatum dislike Gordon more than Kyrie for taking away their minutes for example, but even that isn't enough to cause real chemistry issues imo.

If you are going to hate on Kyrie do it for the right reasons. And I just want to say one more time: everyone here knew he had a F.R.I.E.N.D.S tattoo and thought the earth was flat when he signed here. This isn't Mark Price or some ****, you only have yourself to blame if you didn't understand that he's a different dude. It's all about his massive talent and upside, not the bull **** he says to reporters.

The off-court/personality stuff certainly does matter if it is a major contributing factor in turning what should be a 55-60 win team with championship expectations into an unlikeable loser who gets steamrolled in the playoffs and don't seem to care enough to do anything about it.

How much of that is on Irving, both on and off the court? That is hard to quantify. It is hard to argue he not a significant contributing factor though.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I know more about what's actually going on with this team than you do.

Cool.

[31to6]

All this leadership and toxic chemistry talk about Kyrie is bull.

He sucked on court. He was selfish ON COURT. He let the uncalled hand-checking get to him mentally when he should have just dealt with it. Those are the issues: basketball, not media ****.

And a lot of other dudes sucked last night too. We just **** suck. So sick of people obsessed with the NBA media/players off court. The same type of people who believe Durant and Westbrook were ever friends of any sort are the people who care about this stuff.

I guarantee you Brown and Tatum dislike Gordon more than Kyrie for taking away their minutes for example, but even that isn't enough to cause real chemistry issues imo.

If you are going to hate on Kyrie do it for the right reasons. And I just want to say one more time: everyone here knew he had a F.R.I.E.N.D.S tattoo and thought the earth was flat when he signed here. This isn't Mark Price or some ****, you only have yourself to blame if you didn't understand that he's a different dude. It's all about his massive talent and upside, not the bull **** he says to reporters.

The off-court/personality stuff certainly does matter if it is a major contributing factor in turning what should be a 55-60 win team with championship expectations into an unlikeable loser who gets steamrolled in the playoffs and don't seem to care enough to do anything about it.

How much of that is on Irving, both on and off the court? That is hard to quantify. It is hard to argue he not a significant contributing factor though.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I know more about what's actually going on with this team than you do and if Kyrie is causing any chemistry issues, you/the public do not know what they are and they certainly have nothing to do with dumb media comments.

And let's just say Kyrie is a complete dick at all times to the rest of the team: that's still not enough to cause chemistry issues if you have normal NBA players that aren't tissue paper soft. These guys either care too much about their money, their pride, winning or some mixture of all of those things to not try to win and play their roles.

We just sucked at basketball against a really good team and didn't adjust. Brad/the coaching staff didnt have us ready either.

uhm.. source? A couple of games courtside?

[truth18]

uhm.. source? A couple of games courtside?

Exactly. The courtside non-Celtics team/Sixers games I go to are my source. Jason Kelce told me Kyrie buys the team flowers and chocolate./GREEN .

[fallguy]

All this leadership and toxic chemistry talk about Kyrie is bull.

He sucked on court. He was selfish ON COURT. He let the uncalled hand-checking get to him mentally when he should have just dealt with it. Those are the issues: basketball, not media ****.

And a lot of other dudes sucked last night too. We just **** suck. So sick of people obsessed with the NBA media/players off court. The same type of people who believe Durant and Westbrook were ever friends of any sort are the people who care about this stuff.

I guarantee you Brown and Tatum dislike Gordon more than Kyrie for taking away their minutes for example, but even that isn't enough to cause real chemistry issues imo.

If you are going to hate on Kyrie do it for the right reasons. And I just want to say one more time: everyone here knew he had a F.R.I.E.N.D.S tattoo and thought the earth was flat when he signed here. This isn't Mark Price or some ****, you only have yourself to blame if you didn't understand that he's a different dude. It's all about his massive talent and upside, not the bull **** he says to reporters.

No, he's an atrocious off-court leader and it's done damage and the Celtics know it. Still want him back but the leadership thing is real and corrosive. Ainge will counsel him to improve in various ways like he did Rondo. In fact, it's already happening.

[31to6]

thought maybe AI'd given you the skinny

[Froob]

Funny how a whole season can change everything. I remember talks of us trading Irving for Kawhi at the start of the season but those talks were brushed of because we all thought that Kawhi was a lot more of a chance to go to LA this off season than Kyrie was to leave Boston.
A season later & theirs more of a chance that Kyrie leaves & Kawhi stays in Toronto. What could of been if we just made the trade.

No. There were fictional talks of trading Brown plus picks for Kawhi when he was in San Antonio that a minority here including myself wanted to do despite the inevitability of him leaving.

I remember nothing of this Kawhi/Kyrie stuff.

Why was Kyrie going to re-sign with the Spurs with no Kawhi? Doesn’t even make sense for the Spurs to want him.

[Froob]

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[SmartWentCrazy]

All this leadership and toxic chemistry talk about Kyrie is bull.

He sucked on court. He was selfish ON COURT. He let the uncalled hand-checking get to him mentally when he should have just dealt with it. Those are the issues: basketball, not media ****.

And a lot of other dudes sucked last night too. We just **** suck. So sick of people obsessed with the NBA media/players off court. The same type of people who believe Durant and Westbrook were ever friends of any sort are the people who care about this stuff.

I guarantee you Brown and Tatum dislike Gordon more than Kyrie for taking away their minutes for example, but even that isn't enough to cause real chemistry issues imo.

If you are going to hate on Kyrie do it for the right reasons. And I just want to say one more time: everyone here knew he had a F.R.I.E.N.D.S tattoo and thought the earth was flat when he signed here. This isn't Mark Price or some ****, you only have yourself to blame if you didn't understand that he's a different dude. It's all about his massive talent and upside, not the bull **** he says to reporters.

I’m pretty sure I know your source and I believe you 100%. I also want to echo the bolded— Jackie Mac said that after she wrote her piece on Jaylen struggling to begin the year, his people were furious she didnt write about Hayward and his struggles. Other plugged in guys, such as Simmons, stated that Stevens treated Hayward like a little league parent always batting his kid clean up.

If I had to guess, dudes really disliked Hayward [not personally— hes not a bad person] and tuned out Stevens accordingly.