It's still a little weird adjusting to the new NBA reality created by all of the free agency movement and trades that took place this past summer. During the upcoming NBA season, Chris Paul and James Harden will team up in Houston, Paul George will help Russell Westbrook shoulder the load in Oklahoma City, and in the most shocking move of all, Kyrie Irving will help lead the Celtics and try to knock off his former team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, for the Eastern Conference crown.
The question for the last two months has been one of motivation: Why would Irving want to leave a situation where he could play with the league's best player LeBron James? Though he spent most of his time on ESPN's First Take on Monday dodging Cleveland questions like crazy, Irving stressed that moving on was driven by a desire for personal growth, rather than any sort of serious issue between he and his Cavaliers teammates. He said:
"I have nothing but love for the times I spent there. There’s nothing about that. It just comes a time where you mature as an individual. It’s time to make that decision, and there’s no looking back from that standpoint. There’s no time to figure out how to save someone’s feelings when ultimately you have to be selfish in figuring out what you want to do. It wasn’t about me not wanting to win. It wasn’t about that. I want to be extremely, extremely happy in perfecting my craft. And that was the only intent I had in all of this."
This explanation makes total sense, though the bit about saving someone's feelings is enough to raise a few eyebrows. That seems like a pretty clear swipe at LeBron, who has spent most of the summer posting cryptic Instagram stories alluding to his distaste for the situation. And Irving dug the knife a little deeper during the interview when he offered up this explanation for why he didn't keep LeBron in the loop on his trade demands.
Kyrie Irving reveals why he left Cavaliers | First Take | ESPN
Kyrie Irving talks about relationship with LeBron James | First Take | ESPN
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