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Boston Celtics president for basketball operations Danny Ainge has recently shed some more light on the nature of Kyrie Irving's departure over the summer. Much has been made about Irving's decision to jump ship after just two rather uneventful seasons with the C's, and for his part, Ainge cleared the air.
According to the high-ranking team executive, Irving's exit was actually pretty amicable, all things considered.
Article Continues Below“Talking about last year’s team is getting about as boring to me as talking about the 2016 presidential election. So I think that I’d rather not address those issues, but I will say that I have said before that Kyrie was forthright,” Ainge explained in a podcast, via Ricky Doyle of NESN. “His version and my version might be a little bit different, but it’s pretty close and I think that I hold no grudges against Kyrie.”
Ainge went on to explain that Irving's decision to sign with the Brooklyn Nets was primarily motivated by his desire to go home. A New York native himself, the six-time All-Star saw this as the perfect time in his career to play in his home town.
“Kyrie, he didn’t slam the door on a potential return, but he did let me know that he would prefer to go home,” added Ainge. “Those were the words that he used and so we for sure had an inkling, but he didn’t slam the door on the possibility of returning to Boston.”
What's great here is the fact that Ainge repeatedly emphasized how the possibility of Irving eventually returning to Boston still remains to be an option. Obviously, no bridges were burned, but in reality, the likelihood of Kyrie making a comeback with the Celtics just does not sound very plausible at this point.
