While it seems Kyrie Irving is set on making Boston his permanent residence, at least for the foreseeable future, it's not clear if the Celtics feel as strongly about their dynamic point guard. That's the gist of Brian Windhorst's latest report for ESPN, where he details the early general manager whisperings about the 2019 free agency class. Because Windy has been known to grouse about aggregators taking what he's saying at face value, or twisting his speculative words on a podcast into click bait, we'll blockquote the whole section so we're not later disparaged for failing to contextualize what he's reporting (emphasis ours):
We'll try and translate because the diction is a tad muddy, primarily because the whole idea of the Celtics failing to re-sign their best player (spare us your Jayson Tatum hyperbole) inspires incredulity. However, five years and $190 million is a lot of time and money, and the Celtics are absolutely stacked, particularly along the wing. Some day they'll have to figure out what they're going to do with Jaylen Brown and Gordon Hayward, and if Tatum is untouchable, does that mean Kyrie isn't?
Like Windhorst wrote, it's likely the Shamrocks re-sign him to that five-year, Designated Veteran deal (aka the "Supermax"), but it's interesting the Celtics are slow-rolling a full commitment until the season's end, and they know he's back from the surgery to remove the screws from his patella, which knocked him out for the entirety of the 2018 Playoffs. Other teams predict he'll enter free agency without any restrictions, and it's something to keep an eye on despite his public declaration he's re-signing.
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