Kyrie’s comments about 2018 Celtics superteam don’t quite add up originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
Danny Ainge’s dream has finally been realized. Just not as he initially envisioned it.
The Mavericks’ stunning decision to trade Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers pairs Anthony Davis with Kyrie Irving in Dallas, with Ainge’s Utah Jazz serving as the third team to facilitate the megadeal. The irony was obvious considering that Ainge, in his previous role as Celtics president of basketball operations, reportedly made a strong push to bring Anthony Davis to Boston in both 2018 and 2019 with the hopes of pairing him with Irving.
Irving reflected on that irony Tuesday night in his first public comments since the Doncic trade, claiming that the grand vision was to have himself, Davis and Kevin Durant all team up on the Celtics.
“In 2018, it was a dream for Kyrie, AD, KD to be on one team and still keep JT (Jayson Tatum) and let him grow and then see how it goes,” Irving said, via ESPN’s Tim Bontemps. “But back then, those young guys weren’t ready to be in trade rumors, man.
“Our locker splintered after that, once they found out. It wasn’t JB (Jaylen Brown) or JT, but our locker room splintered once they started figuring out the trade rumors, and our season started going in a different way.”
“We all had that vision to play together in Boston,” Irving added. “Danny Ainge had a large responsibility in that, trying to make it happen, make sure I stayed in Boston. But we had some young pieces in JT and JB and if we would have traded either one of them, who knows if they win a championship. So the franchise had to do what was best for them, and I had to do what was best for me.”
Maybe Irving actually thought that Ainge could build a “superteam” with himself, Davis and Durant while managing to keep Tatum on the roster. But this would have required some serious cap gymnastics, as Gordon Hayward and Al Horford were both on maximum contracts with Boston during the 2018-19 season with Irving making north of $20 million as well. And it’s hard to imagine the Celtics could have landed both Davis and Durant without giving up Tatum and Brown in those deals.
Irving’s comments feel more like revisionist history to explain away his infamous hallway conversation with Durant at 2019 NBA All-Star Weekend, where Irving appeared to tell Durant about “two max slots” that could help them join the same team. Considering Irving and Durant signed max deals with the Nets later that summer, it seems obvious they were talking about Brooklyn, but Irving apparently wants us to believe he was trying to recruit KD to Boston instead of plotting his Celtics exit.
By the time of his chat with Durant, however, Irving had already gone back on his preseason promise to re-sign with the Celtics in the summer of 2019, telling reporters in early February, “I don’t owe anybody s—.” And as for the issues in Boston’s locker room, those were partly of Irving’s creation after he called out the Celtics’ young players amid the team’s early-season struggles.
From their pursuit of Durant in 2016 free agency to their push to acquire Davis in 2018 and 2019, the Celtics nearly made several big moves near the end of Ainge’s front-office tenure. But in this case, Ainge’s best deals were the ones he didn’t make, as the decision to keep Tatum and Brown together ultimately paid dividends in the form of a 2024 NBA championship.
As for Irving and Davis? They’re finally reunited several years later, and will be at TD Garden on Thursday night when the Mavs visit the Celtics.
