Kyrie Irving‘s time in Boston was marred with controversy. His poor performances, injury issues, and the team’s inconsistent form frustrated fans and players alike. Eventually, his unceremonious exit and reaction to taunts from Celtics fans only escalated the issue further. To this day, the two parties remain at odds with each other. But, while Celtics fans still see Irving as a villain, Marcus Smart recently admitted that he enjoyed having him as a teammate.
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During an appearance on the Run Your Race podcast, Smart revealed that his relationship with Irving got off to a rocky start. However, he had a heart-to-heart with the superstar and eventually grew fond of him. He said,
“As a teammate, Kyrie’s great. Me and Kyrie didn’t see eye-to-eye at first. It was tough. He’s trying to figure out the new team, we were trying to figure out how to play with him. I sat him down one time and I was like, ‘Listen bro, I just want to see how you doing. I know you got a lot going on too, and people don’t ask you how you doing?'”
Smart added that he wanted Irving to push him to the limit every time they played against each other in practice, and he’d do the same to him, as it’d benefit them both and bring the best out of them. Over time, the duo built a strong rapport and got along extremely well off the court.
Spending two years as the primary defender against Irving in practice did wonders for Smart, as the work he put in honed him into one of the best defensive players in the league. But despite guarding the superstar day in and day out in practice, he’d still be left speechless about some of the moves he saw him pull off.
Marcus Smart was left amazed by Kyrie Irving’s bag of tricks
Kyrie Irving is often regarded as one of the most skilled ball-handlers and finishers in NBA history. However, while he is mesmerizing during games, it is the moves Marcus Smart saw him pull off in practice that’d leave him beyond befuddled. Writing in The Player’s Tribune, he said,
“There are a lot of things that make Kyrie’s game unstoppable. But his ability to ad-lib and come up with things on the fly is special. That’s why I like to call Kyrie’s moves ‘last-minute moves’… He’s short on time, so his options are limited. Then literally at the last second, he hits you with something you weren’t expecting. And you’re like, ‘Dang … how did he even think of that?’”
Playing against a player as imaginative and skilled as Irving every day molded Smart into an elite defender, capable of guarding any player in the league. It helped him become the only guard in the 21st century to win the Defensive Player of the Year award.
Not many look back on Irving’s two-year stint in Boston fondly, but Smart is in the minority who enjoyed his time as a Celtic.
