Kyrie Irving Out For The Year

As you probably heard, former Blue Devil Kyrie Irving has had knee surgery and is out for the rest of the season, playoffs included.

It’s bad news for Boston this year obviously but honestly, who has ever been in a better long-term position than the Celtics?

Next year they’ll have Irving back, along with Gordon Hayward, who missed his entire first season in Boston.

Boston will also have another former Blue Devil, Jayson Tatum, who has been superb in his rookie year, and Jaylen Brown, who is also a young and immensely promising player.

There are a lot of useful role players too, including Greg Monroe, Shane Larkin, Marcus Smart, Semi Ojeleye and Marcus Morris.

Most of the team is fairly young with only four guys over 28.

The key thing though is that Boston GM Danny Ainge has done a brilliant job stacking up draft picks.

A lot of it depends on future developments, but still, Boston has more draft picks than anyone in their right mind needs.

It’s almost to the point where he has too many and if he doesn’t do something, they're going to get devalued because everyone will understand he can’t use them all.

Even so, it’s not a bad position to be in. He could theoretically trade Hayward, Tatum or Brown, bundle one of those guys with some draft picks and work any number of deals. There are some guys who are untouchable - Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, the Greek Freak and a few others - but Boston has immense resources and an authentic master of the NBA trade in Ainge - not to mention a brilliant coach in still-young Brad Stevens, who has kept this team competitive despite a wave of injuries that would have sunk most teams.

This team could be remade overnight and vastly improved. Even the injuries may work in their favor as Boston could end up with a higher draft pick (their own we mean) than they would have had everyone been healthy.

Ainge is building a monster, he’s not nearly done yet, and Irving is going to drive that train.