In a pretty stunning announcement, Kyrie Irving has been ruled out for the remainder of the season, including the playoffs. Irving will go under the knife Saturday for his second knee surgery in the last two weeks, and is expected to be sidelined for four-to-five months. The Boston Celtics star first had surgery on March 24 for what was deemed a "minimally invasive" procedure to remove a tension wire that had been causing him discomfort. Now, reportedly, he'll have two screws removed from his left knee, which were also believed to be contributing to the discomfort. Irving also intimated on an Instagram post that his knee had become infected after the March 24th procedure.

That's a lot of medical talk, but the bottom line here is this: Kyrie's got a bum knee, and he's not coming back this year. Clearly, this isn't the news Celtics fans, or the Celtics themselves, or certainly Kyrie and his family, were hoping to hear. Everyone was holding out hope that he would make the original timetable of three-to-six weeks and be back in action by the second round at the latest. 

Now, will Boston even make the second round?

If current seeds hold, Boston, as the No. 2 seed in the East, would play No. 7 Washington, and that's a tough draw. Wizards-Celtics feels like a conference finals matchup. To have to go through the Wizards, without Kyrie, and with John Wall back on the other side, is a tall order for Boston. 

Two things on that: First, Boston has proven over this recent stretch that it can still play with most any team, even without Kyrie. Since Kyrie went out on March 11, Boston has beaten OKC, Portland, Utah and Toronto -- all playoff teams -- and it lost to Washington by one point. But that was without Wall. 

The second part of this is the more important part: For the Celtics, next year was always the year anyway. You can't completely rule out any team with a healthy Kyrie Irving. The Celtics have been one of the three or four best teams in the league all season, but chances are, they were not going to truly compete for a title this year anyway. That possibility, for all intents and purposes, went out the window the second Gordon Hayward went down in the season opener. 

So now we can officially end all the whispers of Hayward potentially coming back in some capacity if the Celtics were to make it far enough in the playoffs. Without Irving, Boston has absolutely no chance to compete for a title, so there is no decision to make: Hayward and Irving take the next six months to get right, and Boston comes back next season ready to wreak havoc, which was the plan all along. 

On the night the Celtics acquired Irving in that blockbuster deal with Cleveland last summer, Danny Ainge went on a conference call with the media. On that call, he repeatedly stressed that Irving, who just turned 26 last month while Isaiah Thomas is nearing 30, "fit [Boston's] timeline." He said that over and over. Kyrie fits our timeline. Kyrie fits our timeline. 

In other words, with Hayward locked up for four years and Irving presumably committed to signing up long-term when he becomes a free agent in 2019, Boston was always looking a few years down the road. By then, perhaps the Warriors will have fallen off, or possibly have been broken apart by their own free agency questions, and maybe LeBron will have left Cleveland. Meanwhile, the Celtics will have been grooming their youngsters, giving valuable minutes and responsibility to Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, who will be ready to rock for real when Irving and Hayward come back healthy. 

Or, maybe they include one of their youngsters in another blockbuster deal.

Kawhi Leonard, anyone?

Either way, in the big picture, this fact that Kyrie is done for the year isn't the worst news. It stinks for this year, not only for Boston fans but for all basketball fans who were really looking forward to a wide-open Eastern Conference race that becomes a lot less interesting without Irving. But it's not the worst news. 

You can bet Boston will still be a tough out without Irving, but the ceiling obviously lowers considerably. First-round exit? Second-round exit? It'll all depend on matchups and just how ready Tatum and Brown are to step into a big-time scoring role without the benefit of the attention Irving draws. Now the defense will be focused almost entirely on them. That's a whole different ballgame. 

But again, it's experience you just can't get without being thrown into the fire. Come next season, the Celtics will be much better for it. And Irving and Hayward will be healthy. And Boston's timeline will still be on track.