You would have to go back to the summer of 2007 for a more anticipated Celtics press conference than the one at TD Garden on Friday. The Celtic formally introducing Gordon Hayward and Kyrie Irving.
Both players shared their excited about coming to Boston. "I can't wait to get on the floor and maximize my potential," Irving said. "I just want to be around those incredible coaches and those incredible minds and those incredible individuals, and I feel like in doing that, Boston came right at the exact time and it was meant to be that way. I trust in that, and I'm glad to be here."
For Hayward it's a new team but a coach he's very familiar with "I always say that Coach Stevens was the first person -- I always had a dream to play in the NBA but he was the first person I think made me realize I could maybe get there one day. And so to be back and reunited with him again, I'm beyond excited and can't wait to get to work."
Irving was pushed on his decision to leave Cleveland and the status of his relationship with James.
"I haven't spoken to [James], and my intent [in asking for a trade], like I said, was for my best intentions," Irving said. "To look back at the amount of ground we covered in the last three-year span ... to really realize how special that was and how much stuff happened in that amount of time, I'd be sitting up here and telling you guys a lie if I didn't tell you I learned so much from that guy.
The Celtics traded Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder, Ante Zizic, the Brooklyn Nets' 2018 first-round pick, and the Miami Heat's 2020 second-round pick in exchange for Irving. Hayward signed a four-year, $128 million contract with the Celtics in July.
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