The Golden State Warriors are the reigning two-time NBA champs, but Kyrie Irving believes his Boston Celtics can prevent a three-peat.
The only sad part of Kyrie Irving’s bold claim is that it can’t be justified for almost eight months. However, it’ll take something special to take down the Golden State Warriors who arguably have a top-five player at every position.
Last season, without their two star players, the Boston Celtics pushed the LeBron James-led Cleveland Cavaliers to seven games. Albeit they lost the series, the resilient three of Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum and Al Horford along with Scary Terry (Terry Rozier) made the series of the playoff’s most entertaining.
This season, they’ll return Gordon Hayward and Kyrie Irving, who is reportedly pain-free. While it’s nice to see the C’s at full strength, it’s hard to imagine that they can possibly dethrone the Dubs.
On ESPN’s recent NBA rank, the Warriors had four, yes four, players ranked higher than any Celtic. All four of the Dubs core four were ranked within the top-20 players while Celtics guard Kyrie Irving came in at No. 20.
While anything is possible in the postseason, it seems unlikely that such a bold claim is nothing more than a rallying cry to start the season.
To be honest, the Celtics will have quite the battle on their hands to even beat out the Philadelphia 76ers and Toronto Raptors, who both had players ranked higher than Irving as well. But, with an array of legit stars, the Celtics, along with the Lakers, should be taken as serious threats to potentially dethrone the Dubs.
Irving will have to lead the way though, and that means he’ll have to stay on the court in order to lead his Celtics. Irving did have three extremely long seasons as LeBron James partner in crime, so it’ll be imperative to the Celtics success for him to play the majority of at least the postseason.
For now, let’s just take Irving’s claim as nothing more than it is and meet the Celtics in June, if they make it.