Kyrie Irving has been traded to the Celtics in a blockbuster August deal.
Kyrie Irving’s time with the Cleveland Cavaliers is now officially over.
The disgruntled point guard has been traded to the Boston Celtics.
In return for Irving, the Cavaliers are reportedly receiving All-Star point guard Isaiah Thomas, small forward Jae Crowder, center Ante Zizic, and Brooklyn’s 2018 unprotected first round draft pick.
The Irving situation came to a head fairly quickly after the superstar guard announced his desire to be traded from Cleveland on July 24th.
For Boston, Irving now joins Jaylen Brown, Gordon Hayward, Marcus Morris, and Al Horford in a new-look starting lineup. Let’s not forget, Boston went into the playoffs as the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference last season and will now go into this year with 4 new starters.
The 25-year-old Irving, largely considered to be one of the 10-15 best players in the league, averaged 25.2 points, 3.2 rebounds, 5.8 assists, and 1.2 steals while shooting 40% from the outside in 35.1 minutes a game last season.
Now that he’s gotten his wish and is out of the shadow of LeBron James, look for his scoring numbers to rise next year to the point where he could potentially challenge for the league’s scoring title.
The question now becomes, after all these moves, are the Celtics better than they were last year? That’s hard to say. They’re definitely a more talented group than they were last season, but losing Avery Bradley and Jae Crowder strips away the defensive toughness that was so critical to the team’s success.
For Cleveland, this is a move that helps them contend again this season, while also beginning to prepare for the future.
In the short term, the move improves their depth and gives them a likely new starting lineup of Isaiah Thomas, J.R. Smith, Jae Crowder, LeBron James and Kevin Love, with Tristan Thompson, Jose Calderon, Iman Shumpert, Kyle Korver, Cedi Osman, Richard Jefferson, Jeff Green and Ante Zizic off the bench.
The 28-year-old, 5-9 Thomas is the biggest piece coming to the Cavs this season.
Thomas had a breakout season in 2016-2017, averaging 28.9 points, 2.7 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 0.9 steals in 33.8 minutes a game while shooting 37.9% from 3-point range.
Those numbers got Thomas voted into his second consecutive All-Star game while being named 2nd Team All-NBA and coming in 5th in MVP voting. It’s going to be interesting to see how the ball-dominant Thomas pairs with LeBron James in Cleveland.
Crowder, a small forward, averaged 13.9 points, 5.8 rebounds, and 2.2 assists in 32.4 minutes a game last season. Crowder brings physical play and defensive intensity to a Cleveland team that was guilty of lacking those things over the past few years.
The 20-year-old Zizic is a highly-regarded center prospect who was going to be joining the Celtics this season. He played last year with Darüşşafaka Doğuş in the EuroLeague, averaging an impressive 9.0 points and 6.7 rebounds in 21.9 minutes, in a league that is notorious for not playing young players.
The major wild card in this deal for the Cavs is the inclusion of the Brooklyn Nets unprotected first round pick. The Nets are expected to be among the worst teams in the NBA this season, so that pick could be worth its weight in gold in a draft potentially filled with a number of high-level prospects.
