In the NBA, it doesn’t usually pay to get too attached to a player or a coach. Steph Curry and Steve Kerr are an exception and not the rule. More often, players and coaches bounce around the league in search of better fits, better contracts and better situations.
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As someone who’s played for four teams in his 14-year NBA career, Kyrie Irving understands this very well. Still, as he pointed out during a recent livestream, all of this movement can have unintended consequences. Kyrie pointed to the current Houston Rockets coach, Ime Udoka, to illustrate his point.
Udoka, who was an assistant under Steve Nash with Kyrie’s Brooklyn Nets in 2020-21, left in the offseason to take his first head coaching job with the Boston Celtics. With Kyrie and Kevin Durant, the Nets, who were harboring championship aspirations, were swept by Udoka’s new team in the first round of the 2021-22 playoffs.
“We had Ime Udoka literally go to Boston the next year,” Kyrie laughed. “You got coaches leaving other teams, and it wasn’t anybody’s fault. It’s just opportunity. But we’re in the same division. Can you imagine going against the coach that literally saw all of our strengths and weaknesses, and now we’re playing against him?”
The Celtics knew how to go about beating the Nets. “Boston was ready for us,” Irving added. “Ime had them ready, had the Celtics ready, dawg. When we played them in the 2022 playoffs, s*** got wild.”
The first-round series between the Nets and the Celtics that year was a lot closer than what the sweep indicates. The Celtics won the four games by a combined 18 points.
That was also effectively the end of that era of Nets basketball. Steve Nash was fired as head coach just seven games into the next season. Kyrie and KD were both traded away about three months later.
Player and coach movement is a way of life in the NBA. Kyrie isn’t carrying any ill will toward the parties involved in that 2022 playoff loss. That includes James Harden, who forced his way out of Brooklyn a few months before that playoff matchup took place.
“I can’t be mad,” Irving said of Harden’s trade request. “I’m not gonna ever be mad at someone doing what’s best for them. And [a] shout-out to James, I’ve had my conversation with James. I told him, I said, ‘Bro, I understood completely.'”
Durant and Udoka have now joined forces in Houston. The Rockets are the second favorite in the West behind the defending champion OKC Thunder, while Kyrie is set to miss most of next season rehabbing a torn ACL.
When he returns, Kyrie will hope to help his Mavs take down Udoka and KD with the help of Anthony Davis, Klay Thompson, and recently drafted No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg.
Harden is also out West with the Clippers, and he was just reunited with Chris Paul, whom he played with, oddly enough, in Houston.
There are going to be a lot of fun storylines next year. It feels like this past season just ended, but next season can’t get here soon enough.
