In order to understand why Celtics fans dislike Kyrie Irving, you need to understand how Celtics fans think. The Boston Celtics is the franchise with the most championships in NBA history. It is a franchise that not only wants to compete for championships, its fans expect them to. Making the playoffs and moral victories are not good enough in the city of Boston. Therefor, anyone who derails the mission has always been disliked in the city of Boston.
Kyrie Irving is a special case because he not only made the Celtics worse on the court during his tenure here, he has continued to add insult to injury through his off the court antics throughout the years.
Ultimately, Celtics fans dislike the hypocrisy of Kyrie Irving. I’ll elaborate.
Unfair treatment of teammates.
Celtics fans’ excitement for Kyrie Irving quick decimated as Irving failed to improve the Celtics while on the court. This lead us to one of our first examples of Kyrie deflecting.
After a frustrating loss to the Orlando Magic in 2019, Kyrie Irving made sure to let the media know that he apologized to LeBron James,
“I had to call ‘Bron, and tell him I apologize for being that young player that wanted everything at his fingertips,” Irving said after the Celtics beat the Toronto Raptors 118-107 on Wednesday night. “I wanted to be the guy that led us to a championship. I wanted to be the leader. I wanted to be all that.”
– Kyrie Irving
Kyrie continued,
“I did a poor job of setting an example for these young guys what it’s like to get something out of your teammates,” he said. “Going forward, I want to test these young guys, but I can’t do it publicly. That was a learning experience for me, realizing the magnitude of my voice and what I mean to these guys.”
Ultimately, what he was doing was blaming teammates.
Think about it from a Celtics fans’ perspective. Celtics fans just watched their young team repeatedly win deep into the playoffs without Irving. With the level of play depreciating with Irving on the floor, something was wrong.
For me personally as a Celtics fan, this was when I began to dislike Kyrie Irving.
Kyrie’s nonchalant attitude in losing situations.
The Boston Celtics continued to struggle during the 2019 season. Irving’s nonchalant attitude did not help. During a post game press conference, Kyrie Irving said he wouldn’t shoot 8/22 (36.4%) from the field again after his Game 3 performance. He proceeded to shoot 7/22 (31.8%) from the field in Game 4. When asked about his performance he said, “Who cares?” Kyrie followed this up with a 6/22 (28.6%) shooting night in an elimination game.
As a Celtics fan, that really hurt and lead to me ultimately really disliking Kyrie Irving. He not only sabotaged us in the playoffs, he showed that he didn’t care afterwards.
Kyrie Irving made the Boston Celtics worse.
Following his disappointing playoff performance, Irving would proceed to sign with the Brooklyn Nets. The Boston Celtics would then go back to their winning ways, thus proving that he actually did make the Celtics worse. The sad part is it wasn’t due to a lack of talent. It was due to his attitude. That hurt Celtics fans.
Kyrie lied.
Kyrie’s attitude with the media.
Kyrie’s unfair treatment of Celtics fans.
In 2019, Kyrie Irving said that he had never faced racism in Boston as an opponent. Despite him never returning to Boston as a fan since that comment, he proceeded to basically label an entire city as racist. Being a racist is one of the worst things you can be. Therefor, unfair accusations should be taken seriously. I don’t blame Celtics fans for being upset with this unfair accusation.
The hypocrisy of Kyrie Irving
Irving has done a marvelous job of gaslighting Celtics fans at every turn. Although Irving claims that he wants fans to keep it just about basketball, Irving has done a poor job at keeping anything just about basketball. He has deflected at every turn. Boston fans dislike him for numerous things, none of which have anything to do with his race. Yet, he has continued to refer to his race, as if that was a factor in this discussion.
It’s not.
Celtics fans should dislike Kyrie Irving, in my opinion.
As a human being, I do not care about Kyrie Irving and do not wish him ill will. However, as an NBA player, I dislike him, as all Celtics fans should. However, it’s very important to understand that Celtics fans do not dislike Kyrie Irving because of the color of his skin. Celtics fans dislike Kyrie Irving because of the content of his character.
Failure to understand that and bringing up race is simply deflecting or changing the subject; not a logical defense of Irving.
When you consider his hypocrisy, attitude, and constant deflecting of his failure to this city, I don’t understand why anyone blames Celtics fans for disliking Kyrie Irving.