“We were winning,” he said. “That’s always the goal at hand, is to win at a very high level. In that, you have to figure out what you really want, and what makes sense to you and what feels good. And I was very fortunate that the great organization of Boston traded for me. It turned out to be a hell of a blockbuster trade. It took a few pieces. But that right there, that appreciation is eternal, for them taking a chance on a 25 year old evolving into a man, coming from a championship culture. I played with the best. I’ve competed with the best. And I’ve beaten the best. I understand a lot of the rigors of an NBA season, of being on a high-profile team. And I feel like I brought all that experience here.”

Ironically, Irving is now playing for the franchise with the most NBA championships in league history -- yet almost no one on the current roster has even gotten to a Finals; only backup center Aron Baynes, signed this summer from Detroit, has a ring, won with San Antonio in 2014. So Irving brings unique perspective and accomplishment to these Celtics, who will have 11 new players on the roster this season.

“A ring in and of itself doesn’t bring you cachet,” Celtics general manager Danny Ainge said. “But I think the fact that Kyrie had some great games against us last year, and he was spectacular in the Finals (averaging 29.4 points, 4 rebounds and 4.4 assists per game), the fact that he has a ring is one thing. But the fact that he is a fantastic player is another. He wants to be here. He wants to be in Boston. He seems very, very excited about it. And you can see, just in the few days he’s been here, feel that excitement and energy.”

The Celtics gave up a lot for Irving -- All-Star point guard Isaiah Thomas, the team’s heartbeat and fan favorite last season, ultimate glue guy Jae Crowder, young center Ante Zizic and the unprotected first-round pick in 2018 Boston had via the Nets. What they bought for that was all of Irving’s prime seasons -- he has two years remaining on his five-year, $90 million contract he signed in Cleveland in 2014.

Boston’s original plan was to get both George and Gordon Hayward, the free agent from Utah. But the Celtics couldn’t get a deal done with Indiana before the Pacers sent George to Oklahoma City. Hayward did come, though, and soon after, the Celtics reached for Irving, a four-time All-Star, to create a new and unexpected triumvirate with Hayward and Al Horford.

“He not only has a championship, but the shot he made for them to win it at the end of that game is pretty incredible,” Celtics coach Brad Stevens said. “I think that everybody has ownership, and we’re going to lean on Al and his experience. We’re going to lean on Kyrie and his experience, we’re going to lean on Gordon and his experience. We’re going to lean on (assistant coach) Walter McCarty as a 10-year veteran NBA player who played a lot some years, and didn’t play as much the next, to help our young guys.”

Stevens says it’s like he has a new job this season, even though he didn’t change teams or offices. And for some of the young guys, the idea of Irving being their teammate just months after he helped torch them in the conference finals is still settling in their minds.

“It’s definitely still a little weird for me,” second-year man Jaylen Brown said. “I’ll let you know when it stops being weird.”

It will take a while for everything to stop feeling weird. The Celtics were an offensive force last season, eighth in the league in offensive rating as Stevens drew up sets that stretched defenses to the breaking point -- putting Thomas in endless pick and rolls and dribble handoffs, mastering misdirections to free up Crowder or Avery Bradley or Horford for open 3s (only the Rockets and Cavs attempted more 3s last season than Boston). But Stevens could tinker with the playbook at a micro level because the team’s core group other than Horford had been together two years.

“We were doing things especially at the offensive end, toward the end of last season, that really started to show some corporate knowledge,” Stevens said. “So you just have to build that as fast as you can. Making it as simple as possible early is going to be important, not overdoing it early, especially with offensive and defensive installations, getting in what you need to get in -- but still recognizing at the same time there’s things you’re going to have to do on the fly -- whether it’s at a shootaround, tweaking during a game -- and recognizing it’s part of this process.”

Irving took to heart James’ admonition that a championship team can’t skip any steps, and must build toward peak play over the course of a season -- in practice, on the plane, in the locker room.

“It’s not going to look pretty every practice, not going to look pretty every game,” Irving said. “But the biggest thing that will tell the sign of our identity is how we respond. It’s like we can go through it and some things won’t look like they’re supposed to, or some people react in a way you’re not used to. That comes with being human, learning new individuals. I understand that and I appreciate it. So now that you’ve been in that moment, how do we move forward and address this so, as a collective group, we’re back on the same page? I haven’t even talked about the basketball part; that’s just the human being part of getting to know your teammates.”

Hayward knew Irving over the years from USA Basketball workouts, but he, too, will need time to get his arms around the idea of playing with Irving and learning from him.

“There was so much drama going on with the whole thing,” Hayward said. “You hear it’s going to happen, then it might not happen…when it finally did happen I was excited about it. I would have been excited to play with IT on the basketball court, but you realize it’s a business and these things happen. We get another superstar in return with Kyrie.”

Last season, Bradley and Thomas were the voices that resonated in the locker room. Now, Horford will have to be more vocal (“everybody listens to every word he says,” Stevens said) and Boston’s younger rotation players will have even bigger roles this season. Brown is a strong candidate to start at the two, where the hope is his length and quickness can replace at least some of what Bradley brought to the table defensively. Marcus Smart and Terry Rozier will be counted on as rotation guys and scoring options off the bench.

And Irving will be the lynchpin, now older and more accomplished than in his first stint as a leader in Cleveland, in the pre-LeBron days. What Boston is getting is a clear-eyed killer, secure both in his methods and choice of weaponry.

“I think that the prime years are always better,” Ainge said. “We’ve had a lot of 19-year-old kids come here and be successful -- Kendrick Perkins and Al Jefferson and Avery Bradley -- and they’ve thrived. But there is a time to grow up. Some take a little bit longer than others. But having Kyrie, that’s been in three NBA Finals in a row, and been very good and sort of through that phase of development and maturity, he has a good group of people around him. I think we’ve got good people in the locker room for him to listen and learn from, and a group that he can teach and lead also.”

Boston Kyrie will indeed be different from Cleveland Kyrie -- one that sprang, it seems, from a Platonic conception of himself. If he truly believes this is the best version of what he will be as a leader, as a player, then one can begin to understand why he’d walk away from what seemed like a perfect basketball situation. He is young, still, by NBA standards, and in the flattened east, Boston remains a favorite to challenge the Cavs for supremacy. Seven games of Kyrie versus LeBron would compel.

But it’s a long drive to get there. He has the keys in hand, ready to start the trip.

“I would say when you have to satisfy a want for more, it’s an interesting conversation you have to have with yourself,” Irving said. “How much more do you want out of what you’re in right now? And that was an answer that led to me going to take the bold move of wanting to get traded -- especially with two years left on my contract. It’s unheard of. But to have that understanding and know what I got myself into -- I’m taking a leap of faith. With the confidence I have in myself, it was pretty easy. Like I said, I got pretty fortunate to have a situation like this to come across, for Danny to take a chance like that.”

Longtime NBA reporter, columnist and Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer David Aldridge is an analyst for TNT. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Twitter.

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