Kyrie Irving seems to be happy in his first year with the Boston Celtics. His team is off to a 6-2 start, and Irving’s statistics are pretty similar to his career averages with the Cavaliers.
Irving joined UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma for an interview on the new “Holding Court with Geno Auriemma” podcast recently and talked about many topics. One thing he talked about was why the Celtics were appealing to him.
One big draw was Brad Stevens, whom Irving lauds for being an intellectual.
“When you have a guy like that — that’s just putting it out there in terms of what he’s about — it kind of draws you,” Irving said, as transcribed by Boston.com. “You want to be drawn to people like that. It was something I was unbelievably craving in terms of what I wanted for my career. Brad fits perfectly in terms of that because he has an intellectual mind and is an intellectual human being.”
That’s a lot of praise for Irving, and it helps explain why Irving wanted to play for the Celtics. It also explains in part why Stevens has been so successful. Then, if you want to stretch it even further, this also appears to be an indictment of Cleveland’s coaches, which included Byron Scott, Mike Brown, David Blatt and Tyronn Lue while Irving was there.
The whole interview is worth a listen. Irving also elaborates on his flat Earth talk too.
