Kyrie Irving sums up a trying regular season: ‘A lot of bulls–t’
By Ty Anderson, 985TheSportsHub.com
Celtics guard Kyrie Irving had perhaps the perfect description of his second regular season in Boston.
“A lot of bulls–t,” Irving told reporters.
Kyrie Irving said he went through a lot of "bullshit" on a personal level during the regular season #Celtics pic.twitter.com/5FJ5OvbPHF
— gary washburn (@GwashburnGlobe) April 10, 2019
“A lot of just up and downs that just could have been handled better from a professional standpoint, personally,” Irving said. “I’m talking about me personally, I’m not talking about our team. I had a lot of questions, a lot of just things that weren’t being answered straight up about what it takes to be a great professional in this league.”
In Boston to be the C’s leader in their quest for an 18th title, the 27-year-old Irving has had his shares of blow-ups and spats due to outside distractions this season. Such is life as an all-world talent in a contract year, and with no shortage of teams expected to beg you to come to their city when free agency opens in July.
But it sure seems that Irving knows he could have handled all of that a whole lot better than he did.
“I think that the frame of [being a great professional] is outdated in terms of what you have to be every single day,” Irving continued. “It’s not that hard, you know what I mean? The media, all that stuff that comes with it. I think that it’s an exciting part of it that comes with it that you gotta be aware of. But the real part of it is just literally what I used to wake up every single morning and do, and that’s put a ball in a hoop. And be really great at it.
“I’ve always had the answers and I just looked in the wrong places and I think that, for my career, has been the biggest mistake since I came into this is trying to get validation for stats or other things that really don’t have any validation in my life, and allowing this to bother me. All you guys, and all the questions, everything that comes with it is just so irrelevant to what I do on the court and how hard I work every single day.”
But reading into Irving’s answers and searching for deeper meaning in his quotes has become a hobby of (or maybe for) the mentally deranged, and this is no different.
The idea that these questions are/have been irrelevant could all be thrown out the window tomorrow should Irving go through another tough day of questioning and turn this into a ‘the media tears locker rooms apart’ kind of Q&A session.
He’s just that unpredictable.
The good news, though, is that Irving does seem mentally focused on what awaits the Celtics this weekend in the form of a playoff run he’ll finally be part of after missing last year’s three-round run due to season-ending knee surgery.
“I’m excited to be focused on the game and actually talk about basketball instead of sensationalism,” Irving admitted. “I’m just happy about that.”
Ty Anderson is a writer and columnist for 985TheSportsHub.com. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of 98.5 The Sports Hub, Beasley Media Group, or any subsidiaries. Yell at him on Twitter @_TyAnderson.
