What Went Wrong With Kyrie Irving in Boston? | Crossover Podcast

The Crossover podcast takes a dive into Boston's struggles last season and Kyrie Irving.

Joining SI's Chris Mannix on the Crossover podcast this week are Hall of Fame writer Bob Ryan, Celtics beat writer Adam Himmelsbach and NBC Sports Boston analyst and former NBA forward Brian Scalabrine. Mannix, Ryan, Himmelsbach and Scalabrine take a deep dive into what happened last season in Boston, what happened with Kyrie Irving, and more.

(Listen to the latest Crossover podcast here. The following transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity.)

Chris Mannix: Adam [Himelsbach] you went to Brooklyn for the Nets media day. You asked Kyrie about what happened and what caused him to change his mind. It was like a seven word question that turned into a four minute answer.

Adam Himelsbach: I think it was the longest answer he has ever given.

Mannix: What did you make of the answer to his question?

Himelsbach: So, with Kyrie, as journalists, I guess we joke about it, Kyrie gives a lot of long answers and a lot of it will just be long rambling. You would have to go in and find the sentence and go, I got what you were going for here. For those of you who missed it, he said a big reason for his struggles last year, was the death of his grandfather in October. There were certainly people skeptical of that.

Brian Scalabrine: What about you? What do you think?

Himelsbach: It’s hard to say because when it comes to something like that you can never really get inside somebody’s mind. All I would say is that…

Mannix: There is people internally skeptical of that.

Himelsbach: It seemed to me if that case, if something happened in October, and he didn’t have to share that with us publicly, but he could have been like ‘hey I am going through something right now.’ But that never once came out of the course of the season from him or from someone close to him. He said that was his breaking point and things just never got right after that.

Scalabrine: Chris, aren’t you close with Kenny Atkinson a little bit? I am sure he is like what have I gotten myself into? Like his grandfather died six months ago and you suck in the playoffs and that’s the reason why? What’s going to happen to us? Like we are trying to win. I don’t want to be that guy, but everyone has to kind of move on. Isaiah Thomas moved on pretty quick and dropped 54 in the playoffs. Just saying if I was them, I would be a little worried right now.

Bob Ryan: He is going to play for three more teams. This is not the end of this. At the end of each tenure, each of those teams are going to say, ‘we couldn’t figure that guy out.’ I would tell all those teams buyer beware. Good luck with him. He’s an extraordinary talent. At his size to get to the rim is as well as I’ve ever seen. I shouldn’t say that. We had two in row with Isiah Thomas before him. He’s an extraordinary talent but the whole package and the connection with him is still a little fuzzy.