I Call Bullshit On Kyrie Irving's Supposed "Hip Strain"
I fully admit, this may just be me looking way too much into things wearing my tin foil hat, but it is that time of year. Now that we know Kyrie will miss his second consecutive game with an apparent “hip strain”, I can’t help the fact that my spidey senses are firing on all cylinders. You all remember when Brad talked about this injury before the BKN game right?
Now it’s true that Kyrie is a bit injury prone, and he did play 40 minutes against the Warriors. But if you remember he also sat the previous game against CLE. It’s not like his body was worn out by that Warriors game, he hadn’t played since 1/21. Nothing we saw during that game told us he strained anything, but who knows maybe Brad was telling the truth and he woke up and didn’t feel right. I’ll concede that’s entirely possible.
However, I also can’t ignore everything that’s going on right now. With the Anthony Davis news breaking and rumors swirling everywhere, it was a little suspicious when he sat against BKN, but fine I can give him a game. Well now it’s two days later and he’s still not back? Off something that Brad says wasn’t serious? I’m starting to think there’s more to this story. I have a few theories I just can’t shake from my brain.
1. Danny Ainge is sitting him so he can showcase Terry Rozier to Dell Demps
What do we know. We know that the Lakers are ready to trade for AD. We know that Ainge let Woj know he would be talking to Dell Demps about everything on the table if he waits until the summer. Well, what if part of those conversations included talking about Terry’s value as a starter? Who’s to say Ainge didn’t tell Demps that he would sit Kyrie until the deadline so that he could get a closer look at the potential Terry has as a starter. It’s no secret that Rozier plays a billion times better in the starting unit, and at a time when Ainge needs to bump his value as high as possible in order to delay an AD trade, that makes a ton of sense. Sort of like how LeBron is delaying coming back so NO can get a better look at their young guys. Think about it.
Maybe Rozier was the one piece of the package that Demps wasn’t fully sold on, so Ainge is putting him in a position to show there’s good value there.
2. Ainge is prepared to trade Kyrie Irving at the deadline
This is a theory I put the least amount of stock in, but this is Trader Danny we’re talking about here so on that fact alone you can’t rule it out. Let me repeat myself, I do NOT think this is what’s going on, but you can’t ignore it. If Ainge knows Kyrie is truly leaving, we know he has to move him. If you’re NO, what if you accepted a deal that included Kyrie and Ainge has to shut him down so he doesn’t get hurt before the trade deadline?
Also if you’re NO, who cares if Kyrie leaves depending on everything else that would be in the BOS package. They are going to have to tank anyway, so it’s not like losing Kyrie would be the end of the world for them. Again I put this at 0.000000001%, but history tells us to always expect the unexpected when it comes to Danny Ainge. Trading him to NO pretty much guarantees he ends up in LA next year which also means AD probably doesn’t resign and joins them. I don’t think Ainge is in the business of helping form a Lakers super team, but we’ve seen Ainge do crazy shit before. You have to mention it when going through every possible explanation.
3. The Celtics want to keep Kyrie away from the media
It’s pretty simple. Kyrie doesn’t talk to the media in games he’s hurt. Ainge is no dummy, they know the first time Kyrie is available everyone is going to bombard him about AD, LeBron, is he staying blah blah blah. That’s an unneeded distraction that Rich Paul is trying to create. So what does Ainge do? He doesn’t even give the opportunity for that type of drama to exist. Would it surprise anyone if he sat out until after the deadline when we know what the deal is with AD? If he’s not traded, that’s probably a good sign that the Celtics are in business and Kyrie is staying.
To me, this is the most likely scenario. The Celts looked at their schedule, see teams like CHA/NYK up next and figured it made most sense to just give Kyrie even MORE rest for the LAL/LAC/PHI/DET/MIL stretch immediately after the deadline.
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4. Kyrie really is hurt
Yeah, OK
In my opinion there’s just too much going on right now for Kyrie to all of the sudden have a “hip strain”. I like how they went with that because as we know you don’t mess with hip injuries, and honestly it shouldn’t prevent them from beating the Hornets tonight anyway. Just don’t tell me it’s not a big deal injury and then also keep him out while all this shit is flying around. Did I just crack the case? I think I may have