Aimee
LAS VEGAS — Get the provocative, inflammatory headlines ready!
Kyrie Irving already tired of LeBron James!
Star wars in Cleveland!
Kyrie “can’t smile anymore” about LeBron joining Cavaliers!
Irving has done few interviews since the Cavaliers’ season ended three-and-a-half months ago, but it hasn’t taken long for questions to arise about how happy he really is now that he has been talking. After three days of media availability with USA Basketball and listening to question after question about the friend he’s tight enough with to call just “Bron,” Irving finally exhaled and admitted it was hard to muster up the expected enthusiasm because he’s pretty tired of discussing James’ arrival.
That doesn’t mean Irving’s no longer excited about it. He’s just sick of having the same delectable food for every meal. Irving brightened at the chance to talk about former Duke teammate Mason Plumlee participating with the USA Basketball Select Team this week, a nice change of pace from more LeBron.
“The excitement has kind of died down, because I’m getting asked this question a whole bunch,” he said with a chuckle Wednesday at another LeBron query. “Like I can’t smile anymore when I say, ‘I’m pretty happy.'”
Yet Irving, who remains peeved about the “bunch of B.S.” portraying him as disgruntled in Cleveland and unlikely to sign a contract extension to stay, is very clear that he’s not at all unhappy about ceding the majority of the spotlight and a lot of the ball to a new teammate.
“I’m ecstatic just to be playing with him,” Irving said. “[It’s] the greatest player coming back home and back on the team.”
To go from being the main man on a bad team to helping the “greatest player” on a contending team is no small adjustment, and Irving is aware of that. He said he has already discussed sacrifices with his young teammates, and it’ll start with him.
