Kyrie Irving spent six years with the Cleveland Cavaliers. He went to three NBA Finals with them. He won a championship with them. He orchestrated an awkward departure from them and best-ever candidate LeBron James. It would be understandable if he was nervous about facing them, in Cleveland, on opening night as a member of the Boston Celtics.
Except, you know, he’s not nervous.
As he told The Undefeated‘s Marc J. Spears:
While Irving is expecting a wild return to Cleveland during the first NBA regular-season game of the season on Oct. 17, he doesn’t appear to be anxious.
“No. Why would it be? It’s just hoops,” Irving said before Wednesday’s shootaround in preparation for a preseason game against the Charlotte Hornets. “It’s just hooping. I understand the magnitude … but I know what it is going to entail in terms of marketing, whatever the case may be, to garner up this energy to make people feel a certain type of way. I get all that. It’s part of the game. It’s been a part of the game for a while, but it’s just two hoops and a basketball.
“It’s all love no matter what. I have heard boos at times to hearing cheers in the parade. I’ve been in the championship parade as well as being down 30 in ‘Q Arena.’ So I’ve heard it all. It’s just good to be there and hoop against a great team like the Cavs.”
Really quick: Please, someone, make sure my headstone reads “But it’s just two hoops and a basketball.” That line is amazing.
Anyhow, NBA players aren’t always candid. This type of reaction is to be expected—especially from Irving, who has assumed a position of immense indifference since leaving the Cavaliers.
Maybe he really was that done with them, in which case the absence of nerves would make sense. Maybe he’s lying. Maybe he’s just that authentic of a stone-cold killer. We can’t know for sure.
Still, on some level, this game has to mean a little something more, bringing with it, in turn, some extra pressure. And that’s not because the Cavaliers remain Eastern Conference favorites, or because it is Irving’s first official tilt with the Celtics, or because opening-night jitters are an indiscriminate occupational hazard.
No, that feeling, whatever it is, exists because Irving played for the Cavaliers, and because of how he left the Cavaliers. That has to matter. It may not carry the weight us regular people would assume, but it has to be, at the bare minimum, on his mind.
