The Rise and Fall of Kyrie Irving on the Boston Celtics: Part 1

On August 22nd 2017 the Boston Celtics traded all star Isaiah Thomas and various other pieces including rookie big man Ante Zizic and all round consistent tough-guy Jae Crowder to the LeBron-less Cleveland Cavaliers. In return the Celtics acquired star point guard Kyrie Irving who, two seasons prior had made the most important shot in the 2016 NBA finals, securing the championship for the Cavs.

Kyrie now had his own team of extremely talented young players, including two of the top players from the 2016 and 2017 NBA drafts, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum respectively. Irving had never been the true leader of a playoff team before, obviously playing alongside LeBron the past few years. This power and sense of authority Kyrie had over the youthful locker room mutated into the biggest power trip I can remember in basketball history.

October 2017: The 2017 season (Irving's first season in Boston) got off to a rocky start when former all star Gordon Hayward broke his ankle in the first quarter of the Celtic's first game of their season. With Hayward gone Kyrie was set to seize all the power and take command of the team. To be honest towards the start of that season he did a great job, going on a 16 game winning streak (3rd longest in Celtic history) and Kyrie was the head of all this. It seemed like every game Kyrie Irving would do something spectacular, the way he handled the ball was like nothing I'd ever seen. The early-season winning streak was even enough to erase the sour taste the Isaiah Thomas trade left in the mouths of Celtic's fans. So everything had gone reasonably well his first regular season for the Celts.

April 2018: The playoffs (The Celtics finish the regular season 2nd in the east).

Disaster struck ahead of the playoffs when Kyrie Irving was ruled inactive for the entire playoffs after needing knee surgery. Most people (including me) assumed the short handed Celtics would under perform due to the absence of their star player. The first round was against the 7th seeded Milwaukee Bucks, many were predicting a Bucks-over-Celtics upset. However thanks to big games from both rookie Jayson Tatum and sophomore Jaylen Brown, who had been somewhat underwhelming during the rest of the season, the Celtics won. The Bucks were also surprised by the play of young backup point guard Terry Rozier (taking Kyrie's spot in the starting lineup). The Celtics won that series in 7 very close games.

Next up was the Philadelphia 76ers, the Celtics needed only 5 games to close this one out. Tatum, Brown and Rozier all continued to noticeably improve.

During this out-of-nowhere playoff run Kyrie was resoundingly silent through all of it, he could be seen at the end of the bench scowling and moping about the success of his team.

The Eastern Conference finals that season were the Boston Celtics without Kyrie Irving vs Kyrie's former team, The Cleveland Cavaliers. LeBron's Cavs were expected to make it this far in the playoffs, but the young Celtics definitely were not. The series started off great with the Celtics winning the first two games, however LeBron and the Cavs won the next two. The next three games were not close, no team won by less than ten points, but in the end, the season finished in disappointment for Boston, but overall a very good season.