Ex-Cavaliers GM Explains Why Kyrie Irving Wanted Out From Cleveland

LeBron James joined the Los Angeles Lakers as a free agent earlier this month, while Kyrie Irving joined the Boston Celtics prior to the start of the 2017-18 season, but despite the duo moving on, talks about their relationship breakdown during their time together at the Cleveland Cavaliers continues to make headlines.

It is clear that James and Irving did not see eye-to-eye in the latter stages of their time with the Cavaliers despite the former disagreeing with the team’s decision to trade him last summer to the Celtics.

James and Irving won three straight Eastern Conference titles and played a key role in helping the Cavaliers to their first ever NBA championship when they beat the Golden State Warriors 4-3 in 2016. It was the latter that hit the game-winning three-pointer in Game 7 after they trailed 3-1 after four games.

They played one more season together after winning the title in 2016, and made the NBA Finals again, but lost to the same opponents 4-1. But ex-Cavaliers general manager David Griffin revealed recently that the relationship had broken down much before their final season – 2016-17 – together began.

Griffin also explained that the reason for their relationship breaking down was not personal but more so about their roles on the basketball court. Irving was the team’s point guard, but according to the ex-GM, he was not getting the amount of time on the ball to make an impact on the game owing to James’ dominating presence in the team.

“Kyrie and LeBron didn’t have drama as individuals,” Griffin said on the “Good N’ Plenty w/ Jeff Goodman” podcast, according to NESN. “They could laugh and joke and make fun of each other just like everyone else did on the team. But there was more and more friction in the process in terms of how we go about winning games.”

“It became really evident to Kyrie that he wasn’t going to have the template from which to find out how great he can truly be because he wasn’t going to have the ball enough. And when you’re trying to be point guard who makes everybody better that can be complicated," he said.

“So I think once we won the championship it became clear to him that maybe he was going to need to do something else. And once I was gone, I think it became clear to him that he probably wanted to execute that plan sooner rather than later,” the ex-Cavaliers general manager explained.

Irving has since moved on to the Celtics, where he became the central figure and played a key role in helping them finish as the second seeds in the Eastern Conference. James, on the other hand, led the Cavaliers to yet another NBA Finals, which they lost to the Warriors – again – before opting out of his contract and signing with the Lakers as a free agent.