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Kyrie Irving continues to irk the Boston Celtics fanbase, who have never forgiven him for how his final season on the team played out.
In case you don’t remember, Irving started his final season with the Celtics by verbally committing to the team during an event for season-ticket holders. By the end of the season, Irving couldn’t wait to head towards the exit door, with many believing that he gave up on the team during their ill-fated series against the Milwaukee Bucks.
Since then, there’s been no loved lost between Irving and Celtics fans, and that was on display again on March 6, as Irving and the Brooklyn Nets lost to the Celtics in a closely fought affair. After the contest had finished, Irving took the opportunity to take another shot at Celtics fans, comparing them to a ‘scorned girlfriend’ while speaking to the media in a post-game press conference.
“I know it’s going to be like that for the rest of my career coming in here, It’s like the scorned girlfriend who wants an explanation on why I left but still hoping for a text back. I’m just like, ‘It’s fun while it lasted.’,” Irving said following the Nets loss.
Irving Maintains ‘Good Relationships’ in Boston
While the fanbase may never forgive or forget how the Irving experiment played out, it seems that the superstar point guard has remained close with a number of the team’s senior players, along with some of the coaching staff and front office members.
“I still have lasting relationships in our league that extend as a brotherhood for us and the league. We still remain close,” Irving said, “I was with these guys when they were pups. I just have mutual respect for them, and coming back in this environment, we know what it is.”
Those relationships could be seen first hand as the Celtics won their game against the Nets, with Irving taking time to congratulate his former teammates, and even taking the time out to go and speak with Jayson Tatum’s mother on the sidelines. You could also see some of Boston’s players purposely attempting to quiet the crowd as they broke out into an anti-Irving chant down the stretch, with both Jayson Tatum and Grant Williams signaling for the chants to stop.
Not the First Time Irving Has Taken Shots at Celtics Fans
While Irving’s comments to the media about Celtics fans being like a ‘scorned girlfriend’ will undoubtedly make their way around NBA media, this isn’t the first time he’s taken a shot at the fan base. In fact, what he had to say on March 6 was tame in comparison to how he aggravated tensions last season.
In a previous trip to the TD Garden, Irving was caught on camera making his way towards half-court after the game had finished, with the sole purpose of stomping on the head of the teams’ logo at center court. Those actions didn’t just garner a response from those within the stadium either, as fans and ex-players both weighed in on what was deemed to be a heinously disrespectful act.
“So nobody going to say anything about Kyrie Stomping ‘Lucky’? We just gonna act like we didn’t see that? You can’t do that, that’s not cool on no level,” Kevin Garnett wrote on his Instagram story not long after those events unfolded.
It would seem that neither Irving nor the team’s fans are going to back down in voicing their distaste for each other, and as long as it remains nothing more than the occasional back and forth, there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it enriches games between two of the best teams in the Eastern Conference, and that’s good for everybody involved.
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