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The Kyrie Irving saga began in the 2018 playoffs - time to put it to bed

As Kyrie Irving was openly cheering on his teammates in their long post-season run in 2018, a part of him was lamenting the fact that they were succeeding with him out of action with an injury. That is human, and no indictment of a supremely talented player with limited leadership skills.


Then things really hit the skids during the early stages of last season. Boston got off to a 6-2 start, then started losing. They lost eight of their next 12 games, resulting in a 10-10 record on November 24, 2018. Jaylen Brown went from starter to second string, and Marcus Smart was placed into the starting back court. Boston went on an 8-game winning streak but then started to falter once again.

The fact that the team could come close to the NBA Finals without him, and lose so many games with him on the court leading the charge most likely took a toll on Kyrie's rather-large ego. That 8-game winning streak ended on December 14, 2018. That may be close to the time that Kyrie Irving decided to go home. Barring some spectacular, verified news surrounding this issue, this is the last I will write about the Kyrie departure saga. Time to move on.


The Celtics Training Camp is a bit more than two months away, and I have already seen a few articles projecting discontentment and disarray in the 2019-20 version of the guys in green. What the Hell is that? There is something intrinsically wrong with Celtics writers hanging on to the dysfunction of last season and foretelling the same for a season that hasn't even started.

If dysfunction is happening, then write about it as it occurs. But don't dwell so much on the negative past for too long or try to boost readership by forecasting a tumultuous coming season. Two months seems like too long to wait for Training Camp. But it's time for a fresh start.

Follow Tom at @CelticsSentinel and Facebook



Comments

  1. Predictions for the stock market work the same way. Most take the easy route and predict that the current trend, whatever it is or was, will continue. A few predict the opposite, perhaps just to be controversial, or to gamble. In this case, however, I do see a fair amount of reasonable optimism out there about the Celtics for next year. Sadale Mack Green just predicted that we will win the Atlantic Division, for example. The revised ESPN power rankings put them 7th overall and 3rd in the East, and moreover we know that Philly, one of the teams listed to be ahead of us, has to prove that their roster has enough quickness and depth, if they want to actually finish ahead of us.

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    1. My next question for this group is who really steps up for Boston to make for a Power Pairing with Kemba? Tatum? Gordon? Jaylen? Hayward absolutely NEEDS this season. I guarantee he is putting the work in this summer. He could be the one.

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