Celtics' CEO Wyc Grosbeck: Kyrie Irving Departure 'Touched off a Lot of Stuff'

While his departure felt inevitable, losing Kyrie Irving apparently disrupted a lot of what the Boston Celtics had been planning.

Speaking on NBC Sports Boston, Celtics majority governor Wyc Grousbeck said Irving's decision to leave "touched off a lot of stuff," including how the franchise was able to pitch prospective free agents:

The Celtics sit ninth in the Eastern Conference at 15-17, leading some to question how the team got here. 

Grousbeck's comments came on the same day as general manager Danny Ainge gave a frank and reflective interview on 98.5 The Sports Hub:

There's no question Irving's run with the team didn't go according to plan.

The six-time All-Star was 25 in his first season with Boston. He said in October 2018 he expected to remain with the Celtics when his contract expired the following offseason, and he could've been the team's starting point guard for the next decade given his age.

And as Grousbeck said, Irving's presence coupled with that of Gordon Hayward, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown could've turned the Celtics into a premier destination for marquee stars either out of contract or looking to force a trade from their current team.

By the end of his time in Boston, though, a separation may have been the best for everybody involved. 

After the Celtics lost to the Milwaukee Bucks in the 2019 Eastern Conference semifinals, ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Jackie MacMullan wrote postmortems that partially illustrated how the Irving/Boston partnership simply didn't work.

Irving himself acknowledged in January 2019 he wasn't fully prepared for what was required to be a team's key leader and No. 1 option.

Rather than failing to re-sign Irving, Boston's fatal error was thinking it could tie its future to him in the first place.

Going to the Brooklyn Nets not only represented a move closer to home, but it was also an opportunity to set the terms on his own career. He got to choose his destination, unlike getting selected by the Cleveland Cavaliers and then sent to Boston in a trade.