The Boston Celtics continue to be one of this season's best stories, yet they can't seem to get away from last season. Every time they turn around someone is asking them some variation of what went wrong last year, which the pretty clear implication always being that Kyrie Irving was the culprit.
So now the Celtics are going overboard in their support of Kyrie, because it's the right thing to do given that both he and the team have moved on. Why dig up old bones? Marcus Smart, who famously said he was sick of talking about Kyrie (which remains the best answer anyone has given to all these questions), has backed Irving time and again. Jayson Tatum said Irving shouldn't get any of the blame for last season's shortcomings. Danny Ainge put the blame on himself, saying he should've made more moves.
Now Jaylen Brown is defending Kyrie's good name. Problem is, he's also calling out his coach and front office in doing so. In fact, he's calling himself out without even realizing it. In a recent interview with Brandon 'Scoop B' Robinson of Heavy.com, Brown was -- of course -- asked to address the downfall of Boston's 2018-19 season and to what degree Kyrie deserves the blame.
Here's what Brown said:
"Kyrie got a lot of the blame and was undeserving. It wasn't his fault that certain guys couldn't take a step back. It wasn't his fault. That was the front office and the coach's fault. He gets a lot of that blame because he was the star. But a lot of that should be on the organization and coaching staff. It's in the past. Kyrie is in a better place in Brooklyn, somewhere his roots are. He'll be fine."
A couple things here. First, where was all this support for Kyrie last season? Now that everything is good, every one of these guys has been more than happy to detail the dysfunction of last season's Celtics while jumping to Irving's defense, but when Irving was catching heat in the middle of the downfall, nobody felt like being this adamant in setting the record straight then?
Irving is no hero here. He's probably gotten too much of the blame, but to flip this thing all the way around and act like he was just completely mischaracterized and had nothing to do with one of the most talented teams in the league effectively falling apart is not genuine. We are still awaiting our first piece of evidence that Irving can make a tangibly positive impact on any team that doesn't also feature LeBron James.
The Celtics were more successful without him.
So far, the Nets have been less successful with him.
Beyond that, what in the world is Brown doing trying to end one controversy by starting another? With how well the Celtics are playing, and how well Brown is personally playing, and how harmonious this season has been, he really thought it was a smart idea to put his coach and front office on blast?
Brown says: "It wasn't [Kyrie's] fault that certain guys couldn't take a step back." He says this even though Brown was literally the guy, more than anyone else, who had trouble taking that step back. Brown calls out a front office that put one of the most talented teams in the NBA on the floor? If that's not a front office -- and specifically a GM -- doing a good job, what is?
Overall, Brown is really throwing shade at an organization that just gave him a $115 million contract? A contract, mind you, that plenty of people would argue his actual production, to the point of his signing that deal, hadn't yet warranted such money.
Again, you have to sympathize with the Celtics' players continually having to answer these questions and trying to come up with halfway fresh answers on the spot. We get mad when players don't say anything, and then when they say something, we criticize that, too. I get that. I'm part of it. I'm sitting here right now criticizing something Brown said when it simply could've been a case of a player, like everyone else has done a hundred times, saying something he wishes he would've worded differently in hindsight.
Still, having said that, this was a pretty egregious call out. It didn't exactly seem accidental, like throwing Brad Stevens and Danny Ainge directly under the bus just sort of slipped out.
It's not to say Stevens couldn't have better handled the personal dynamics of guys like Brown having to accept a diminished role last season. Maybe he's a bad communicator behind closed doors. I've never heard anything that would suggest that, but maybe. Or Maybe he really did go too far in trying to prioritize Gordon Hayward's role -- to the detriment of guys like Brown -- before he was physically and mentally ready to be his old self. Ultimately, maybe Stevens didn't do a good enough job putting people in positions to succeed in their new roles.
Still, when a player is asked, effectively, to dole out blame for a problem to which he personally contributed, that player is clearly best served to either avoid the question altogether or take the heat himself and keep it moving. All Jaylen Brown needed to say was a lot of players -- "including myself" -- had trouble taking a step back last year, and his answer would've come off totally different.
Instead, he dimes out his organization and wipes his own hands clean. How is it the fault of a front office's that the legitimate championship talent it put together couldn't find it in themselves to actually play together?
Again, a lot of this was Kyrie. I understand the players not wanting to say it, especially over and over, but his drain on that team last season was pretty clear. It doesn't mean it was all his fault, but it was certainly part of it. As for the other parts of the blame, take some responsibility. If you're not just going to say "next question" and keep it moving, at least try not to take the organization back to the state of finger-pointing dysfunction from which you've finally emerged as both a happier and better team.
