Kyrie Irving speaks out about his decision to leave Boston for Brooklyn
"I just wanted to come here with a very fresh mindset and make sure that I'm honest with my teammates going forward."
Speaking publicly for the first time since the unceremonious end to his two-year tenure in Boston, point guard Kyrie Irving admitted he failed as a leader last year.
“I failed [my Celtics teammates] in the sense that I didn’t give them everything I could have during that season, especially with the amount of pieces that we had,” Irving said Friday morning at Brooklyn Nets media day.
Irving, who sported black-and-white Nets threads along with a preseason afro, opened up about the death of his grandfather and how it complicated his relationship with not only his teammates but also the sport. He said he responded to the loss in ways that are “uncharacteristic” of his usual behavior and noted that he didn’t take proper measures to cope with the death.
Although Irving called basketball “the last thing on [his] mind” at the time, he took little time away following the death, only canceling a talk at Harvard and missing the Nov. 9 game in Utah to attend the memorial. The sorrow in his personal life carried over to his professional life, as Irving insinuated the fact that he was unable to talk to his grandfather much before his passing led him to resent the game.
“You tell me if you would want to go to work every single day knowing that you just lost somebody close to you doing a job every single day?” he asked. “This is a game, but also our lives come into this and when it affects our livelihood and it affects our happiness to play basketball, then the product or our service out there on the floor is not great. That’s just what it is.”
Irving said the death helped him recognize the importance of family and prompted him to create some distance from teammates and coaches.
“The joy I had for [basketball] was sucked away for me,” Irving said. “There was a facial expression that I carried around with me throughout the year. I didn’t allow anybody to get close to me in that instance, and it really bothered me. I didn’t take the necessary steps to get counseling or get therapy or anything to deal with someone that close to me dying. I’ve never dealt with anything like that.”
His grandfather’s death shaped the rest of his season, one that was plagued by chemistry woes and inconsistent play. The tumultuous year ended with a second-round exit against the Milwaukee Bucks, a five-game series in which Irving shot 25 of 83 over the final four games. In his final press conference after Game 5, the 27-year-old shirked accountability.
Irving said he has since reached out to ex-teammates, as well as Celtics co-owner Wyc Grousbeck and president of basketball operations Danny Ainge, to tell them he cares about them “as human beings.” He acknowledged he harbored a lot of his feelings last season and expressed his intentions to be more forthright moving forward in Brooklyn.
“I just wanted to come here with a very fresh mindset and make sure that I’m honest with my teammates going forward,” he said.
Ainge has said previously he had a “pretty good idea” Irving wouldn’t be coming back in March or April, despite the grand announcement proclaiming his interest in re-signing. Irving didn’t go into details about when his mind changed, though his grandfather’s death seems to represent a turning point.
“Nine months ago, I was sitting in front of the Boston crowd saying I wanted to re-sign,” Irving said. “After that, a lot of things happened in my personal life that really changed the landscape of how I felt about the game of basketball and actually playing it in a team environment and that really affected me as a human being.”
Irving was extremely complimentary of the Nets organization, highlighting how he and teammate Kevin Durant have been treated “like All-Stars.” With Durant is expected to miss the upcoming season, Irving said he plans to offer unwavering support and ensure that there’s no pressure on him to return. He shared excitement about the opportunity to play both with one of his best friends and close to home, going so far to say that he and Durant both plan to end their careers in Brooklyn.
“I’m the next one and meant to take over this league for the next few years,” he said.
