If Kyrie Irving is doing any of this on purpose, he's a damn genius. Last season, the six-time All Star presided over, or as he himself admitted subsequently, failed to preside over, an extremely disappointing Boston Celtics season. With the team in shambles, Irving showed little interest in getting things back on track or steadying teammates. If anything, his strange eagerness to tease his upcoming free agency only made things worse. Irving was roundly criticized, as if the familiar characterizations of him as flakey, impenetrable, self-absorbed, and immature had finally come home to roost.
It was without question the lowest point so far in Irving's relatively brief, but very eventful, NBA career. In 2017, he had asked the Cavaliers to trade him so he could prove that he was more than LeBron James's virtuosic sidekick-that he was fully deserving of his own team. The Celtics looked like an ideal match, in terms of both what they needed from Irving and what he needed from them. For the Celtics, swapping out Isaiah Thomas for Irving was a clear upgrade, not to mention a perfect fit for Brad Stevens's pass-happy system, which took a lot of the guesswork out of the lead guard role. It catered to Irving's strengths, masked his weaknesses, and allowed him to feel like an alpha dog without having to do all the heavy lifting. Irving got his team without ever really being handed the keys.
We will probably never know if Irving was truly duped, or knew what was going on and hid that knowledge from himself, or reveled in the irony of the situation as a way of feeling superior to the entire world. He may have embraced the paradox to prove a point about how, when you really think about it, reality is an illusion and perception is just one big cosmic joke. Regardless, at first it worked. The 2017-18 Celtics were a very good team, and Irving was very much the player he's supposed to be until an injury knocked him out of the playoffs. The problem with 2018-19 was that Irving needed the Celtics humming along harmoniously for the façade to remain intact. When the team's chemistry came undone, everyone reflexively looked to Irving-the putative leader-to step up and fix things. But Irving wasn't ready or willing to be that kind of leader, and so instead of proverbially stepping up, he receded and attempted to dodge any kind of accountability.
Because Irving is one of the deadliest offensive weapons in the league, he pretty much had his pick of teams this offseason. While Irving was no longer going to cut it as an unquestioned franchise player in anyone's mind (and maybe he never even did in Boston), pairing him with another big name would still automatically make for a playoff team, if not something more. Irving's name was linked with several potential destinations. There were even rumors that he might reunite with James in Los Angeles. The fact that this was being credibly circulated at all spoke volumes, as did the general consensus that Irving would be looking to team up with another star, very possibly one who was more highly regarded than him. Irving, who had wanted so badly to be the man, was suddenly (supposedly) fine with sharing the spotlight, if not least in part ceding it.
It was, however inadvertently, a master stroke. No one had forgotten 2018-19. But rather than taint Irving, the experience was seen as a springboard to greater maturity. The real Kyrie Irving would move through this stress and turmoil like so many defenders in traffic and emerge better, and more fully-realized, than ever. Irving's stock was holding steady because his willingness to accept his limitations gave the impression that had learned something from his time with the Celtics and could potentially continue to grow. It had humbled him and allowed him to put his game in perspective. The worry before was that Irving was off in his own world, and that his delusions held sway on an almost metaphysical level. Irving, rather than come crashing down to Earth, successfully broke his own fall.
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