While the All-Star Game assembly between Irving and Kevin Durant has gained lots of attention in the years since it occurred, a new book details the origins of the joining of superstars at Brooklyn.
Back in an excerpt posted online by the book"Can't Knock The Hustle," writer Matt Sullivan details a night Durant spent at Irving's Massachusetts home in January 2019, in which both players had one of their first serious discussions about producing a tandem move in free agency in the approaching summer.
"That night at the suburbs, [Durant] even ate a vegan burger for the first time. 'I really could f-- with this,' he explained. A super-team was starting to be shaped, over a side of kale salad and... clink," Sullivan wrote. "KD and Kyrie went upstairs into the playroom, shared with a vegan smoothie, taken a Nerf ball to a toy hoop and played with NBA2K. Controlling miniature versions of themselves and their teammates, such as marionettes, they believed how they might string together a team that has been going somewhere. 'And from that point,' Kyrie said,'we chose back the power and set it in our hands'"
Previously, Sullivan had shared a page from his book, in which a friend of Irving explained that talks with Bill Russell in addition to general knowledge of Boston's racial history payable to Irving's choice to depart the Celtics.
Brett Carroll, Irving's friend, advised Sullivan:"And he also realized,'Wait a minute: I'm trying to champion Boston, but now I'm taking a look at the history of Boston, is this a city that I want to winner? When it comes to their racial history and stuff like that... is Boston the kind of place I wish to reflect?'"
