Kyrie Irving is attempting to clear the air on his infamous departure from the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Once a rising star who had voiced a commitment to the Cavs and figured to become a franchise cornerstone for years, Irving asked out in July 2017. The news came as a bit of a surprise at the time, especially since the Cavs at that point were coming off a third consecutive trip to the NBA Finals.
The news seemed abrupt, and with it came a notion that Irving was tired of playing in James’ shadow. The Cavs ultimately traded Irving to the Boston Celtics, and there has been a long-held belief since that Irving and James have beef with each other.
Appearing on the “I Am Athlete” podcast, Irving clarified his reason for wanting a trade and the state of his relationship with James.
“We have got to be cool as brothers whether we’re playing together or whether we’re not playing together we have to protect one another because it will seep into family life where people will really think that we don’t like each other based on us not being able to play together anymore,” Irving said. “You asked for a trade so you must hate that dude – it wasn’t that, that was the furthest thing, that’s not true, that’s not true. So I had to defend myself, he had to defend himself and it’s like I’m trying to put that to bed so I can continue to build my own legacy, but I’m continuously reminded over and over again ‘Yo, you left Bron, how could you do that?’ You’ve got his fanbase, you’ve got my fanbase, you’ve got team fanbases going at like yo, why couldn’t this work?
"I say this: I asked for a trade because I was looking for something different. I was a man of my word when I went to the organization, I sat the higher-ups down and said ‘Look, I know y’all have future plans, tell me (them) right now. They told me their future plans and I said look, this isn’t for me. I shared that with them, but didn't get a chance to talk to Bron before the media ended up coming out and saying that I asked for a trade. So I go over to China, and I’m on my Nike tour, somehow the news gets leaked while I’m in China. I’m not even on American soil right now, so I can’t even get on to defend myself.
“So now, I see all these reports – and I’m 12 hours ahead in China so I’m staying up until 4 a.m. wondering what’s being reported now. And I didn’t have a sense of how to manage that when all the media is coming after me. So now, my agent is on the phone. He's like ‘we should do this, we should put out a statement, we should do this.’ But I had the conversation that needed to be had with the organization, and then I was going to have it with Bron. But as soon as I got over to China, boom, now it’s ‘Bron attempted to do this and Kyrie is saying this about this.’ That’s not the image I want to create, me and him never had beef like that."
The question then becomes what the Cavs' future plans were that Irving alludes to. They continued to compete, advancing to the NBA Finals the season after Irving left before needing to tear things down because James left and the pieces the Cavs had gotten for Irving either had also been traded again or were non-factors.
Irving has yet to win a title since leaving Cleveland, and hasn't played in a game past the second round of the postseason. Now, his future in Brooklyn is uncertain following a tumultuous 2021-22 campaign in which his decision to not get vaccinated limited him to just 29 games.
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