Kyrie Is ‘Miserable’, Won’t Be Able To Handle Knicks Pressure, Barkley Says

NBA legend Charles Barkley has given a scathing assessment of Kyrie Irving labeling the Boston Celtics point guard "miserable"’ for his attitude during their recent run of poor results. The Celtics had lost five of six before their 33-point win over the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday lifted the mood in the camp.

The Boston franchise were tipped as one of the favorites to progress from the Eastern Conference before the season started, but they did not lived up to their potential with the team taking longer to adapt than expected. They are currently 5th on the table and unlikely to make the top two seeds with the Milwaukee Bucks and Toronto Raptors locking out those positions.

Irving will enter free agency in the summer and had initially committed his long-term future to the Celtics but he has since backtracked on his commitment and is now expected to leave in the summer. The point guard has been very irritable with the media talking about free agency, and the Celtics’ recent form has not helped either.

The 26-year-old joined the Celtics from the Cleveland Cavaliers to get out from under the shadow of LeBron James and lead his own team, but has found it difficult in the face of their inconsistent campaign. He has criticized his teammates by questioning their experience and desire, but immediately apologized for the same.

Barkley was at a loss to explain Irving’s recent behavior and explained that one of the jobs of a player wanting to lead his own team was to take the blame for its shortcomings during the course of the campaign.

“Kyrie Irving, I don’t know him that well, he seems like a nice kid, but I’ve never seen a person so miserable,” Barkley said Wednesday morning, as quoted by the Boston Herald. “He’s got the world in the palm of his hand, he’s going to make $40 or $50 million a year for the next 10 years, he’s in movies, but he’s one of the most miserable people I’ve ever seen.”

“He wanted to go to Boston to have his own team. But what a lot of these guys don’t understand is, when you’re a star you get all the credit but also all the blame,” he added. “That’s not right. That’s just the way it is. Nobody goes to Jaylen Brown or the Morris brothers – they’re going to come to Kyrie Irving after every game. That’s the responsibility of being a star.”

Irving has been linked with a move to the New York Knicks if he leaves the Celtics in the summer. He is expected to partner fellow free agent Kevin Durant and move to the Big Apple after they freed up cap space for two big free agency players by trading Kristaps Porzingis.

But Barkley believes that both players, who have shown they cannot handle the media pressure, will not be able to cut it in New York if they could not handle the “heat” in Boston and San Francisco.

“They’re saying I can’t get away from this. No, dude, you’re never going to get away from this,” Barkley said of their tantrums about the media. “If I’m a New York Knicks fan I’m leery, because if you can’t take the heat in Cleveland, Boston and San Francisco, you’re not going to take it in New York. Both of these guys have handled it awful.”

“They could have said Day 1 I’m not going to talk about free agency and it would have been over, but they talk about it every single day, and when you guys ask them about it every single day they complain about it,” he added.