The NBA will soon be deemed the league of petty. With Kyrie Irving making his Boston Celtics debut against his old Cavaliers team in Cleveland on Tuesday, we expected a lot of drama to unfold at Quickens Loans Arena.
And in reality, Irving might have brought this on himself with comments he’s made about both the city of Cleveland as well as former teammate LeBron James since being dealt.
Despite this, Cavaliers officials were going to show respect for Irving’s tenure in Cleveland by playing a tribute video to the former champion. That never came to fruition.
“We were expecting to run it (the video) at a floating opportunity based on the right moment, and we felt that moment never presented itself,” Cavaliers spokesperson Ted Carper said, via Cleveland.com.
Whatever that means, we’ll never know.
Unfortunately for this narrative, the very same report noted that several members of the Cavaliers were upset that the team was going to show a video tribute in the first place.
“A source with direct knowledge of Cavs’ players thinking told cleveland.com that several inside the Cleveland locker room were upset Monday upon hearing that a video was planned.”
This apparently included owner Dan Gilbert.
Irving played six seasons with the Cavs, earning three conference titles and an NBA championship in his final three years with the team.
Under normal circumstances, that would likely warrant some type of tribute. But these most definitely are not normal circumstances.