Early last October, Kyrie Irving publicly declared his intention to re-sign with the Boston Celtics in free agency this summer.
"I've shared it with some of my teammates as well as the organization as well as everyone else in Boston," Irving said at an event for season-ticket holders at TD Garden, via the Celtics. "If you guys will have me back, I plan on re-signing here next year."
But, by the time July rolled around, Irving was gone as he inked a fresh, four-year max deal with the Brooklyn Nets, and it didn't even seem like staying with the Celtics was something that the All-Star guard strongly considered. Clearly, something changed between October and July, and that isn't lost on Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck.
"As the season went on, something changed [with Kyrie]," Grousbeck said Tuesday morning on WEEI, via NESN. "By February, we thought he was at risk for not coming back and then in June, that's what happened."
Whatever the reasons, however, Grousbeck holds no ill will toward Irving for walking away from the Celtics, and he wishes him the best moving forward in his career. Grousbeck even said that the two have had a positive exchange since Irving signed with Brooklyn.
"He sent me a text the other day, just out of the blue," Grousbeck said of Irving. "It was a nice, lengthy text ... We had a nice back and forth. … He's a good guy, he tried hard, he gave us two years, and we're going to move forward ... He and the Celtics have a positive relationship and we wish him kind of the best, except when we're playing them."
We may never know exactly why Irving decided to walk away from a team that was initially projected to be an Eastern Conference powerhouse, but the team's failure to live up to lofty preseason expectations likely played a role in Irving's decision, as did the fact that Boston's key contributors never really seemed to jell. Grousbeck also thinks that proximity to family was a factor in Irving's final decision.
"I think that he wanted to go back down, his family is in New York and he wanted to be back down there, and we're going to gear up for the Nets," Grousbeck said. "There are good feelings, but good competitive feelings."
Celtics general manager Danny Ainge said something similar about Irving's desire to return home driving his free agency process earlier this month.
"He did express to me on a couple of occasions between March and the end of [the season] that he really wanted to go home," Ainge said. "I got the impression at that point that he wanted to go play in Brooklyn more than he wanted to play in New York."
While Irving and the Celtics organization may have been able to maintain a positive relationship after their break-up, the same may not be able to be said about the fan base. Given the fact that he decided that Boston wasn't the place that he wanted to be moving forward, Irving should brace for booing the first time the Nets travel to TD Garden next season.
