BOSTON — There was a time when Celtics fans were excited about Kyrie Irving. They can recall the summer of 2017, when Irving forced his way out of Cleveland and landed in Boston, where he delighted in the Celtics’ illustrious past and pledged to do what he could to help the team win.
But over Irving’s two seasons with the Celtics, all that communal excitement morphed into a bunch of different stuff: tolerance as he struggled with injuries, then impatience as he criticized teammates, then something that resembled rage as it became clear that he and Boston were bound for a divorce.