Table of Contents
The Story We Were Sold and the Pieces That Never Fit
As a journalist who has spent years chronicling the narratives of the NBA, the summer of 2017 stands O.T. When news broke that Kyrie Irving wanted out of Cleveland, the story that took hold was irresistible in its simplicity.1
It was a classic tale, an archetype as old as time: the brilliant young apprentice, “Robin,” tired of living in the colossal shadow of the master, “Batman,” sought his own kingdom.2
It was neat, tidy, and fit perfectly into the well-worn grooves of sports media discourse.
I, like most, accepted it.
But the pieces never quite fit.
If this was simply about an understudy wanting the spotlight, why was LeBron James—the supposed “Batman” who benefited most from this dynamic—reportedly “blindsided,” “disappointed,” and even “devastated” by the news?4 Why would sources close to him say he called management to persuade them
not to trade Irving, calling the move “bad for our franchise”?7
Other dissonances nagged.
The timeline was chaotic.
Just weeks before Irving’s request became public, the architect of their 2016 championship, General Manager David Griffin, was abruptly let go after his relationship with owner Dan Gilbert became untenable.10
And Irving’s own explanations were frustratingly abstract, focused on a desire to “perfect my craft,” find a “truthful environment,” and achieve a state of personal happiness, rather than a straightforward desire to be “the man”.12
The simple “shadow” narrative was failing.
It couldn’t account for the complexity of the emotions, the front-office turmoil, or the philosophical nature of Irving’s discontent.
To truly understand this seismic breakup, it became clear that we needed a new lens.
We had to stop looking at the 2014-2017 Cleveland Cavaliers as just a basketball team and start seeing them for what they had become: a high-stakes, high-pressure, and ultimately volatile startup.
The Epiphany: A Basketball Team, A Rock Band, A Tech Startup
The breakthrough in understanding this saga comes from reframing it through a different, yet strikingly similar, paradigm: The Co-Founder’s Dilemma.
The dynamics that tore the Cavaliers apart were not unique to sports; they mirror the classic schisms seen in high-growth tech startups and legendary rock bands, where genius, ambition, and personality collide under immense pressure.
In this framework, the 2014-2017 Cavaliers were a venture-backed enterprise:
- LeBron James: The visionary Founder and CEO. He returned to the “company” he originally built to provide the overarching vision, market-defining leadership, and championship-or-bust pressure.
- Kyrie Irving: The brilliant, product-focused Co-Founder. He was the master craftsman responsible for the core “technology”—the unstoppable, artistic, and clutch offensive creation that made the product unique. He had signed his “co-founder” extension just ten days before the CEO’s celebrated return.10
- Dan Gilbert: The mercurial Chairman of the Board and Lead Investor. His relationship with the CEO was famously fraught, creating a layer of tension at the highest level of the organization.15
- David Griffin: The indispensable Chief Operating Officer (COO). He was the operational leader who managed the day-to-day, navigated the powerful egos of the founders, and made the entire enterprise function smoothly.10
- The 2016 Championship: The “unicorn” valuation moment. This was the triumphant product launch that validated the entire venture, silenced all critics, and put them on top of the world.
This analogy also layers neatly with the dynamics of a supergroup, like The Beatles’ Lennon/McCartney or The Eagles’ Frey/Henley, where creative friction and the desire for individual artistic expression are inevitable byproducts of success.17
The “Batman/Robin” trope is a well-documented phenomenon in these partnerships, from Kobe and Shaq to countless bands.19
By viewing the breakup through this new paradigm, the confusing data points crystallize into a coherent narrative, built on three core pillars of the co-founder’s dilemma: a misalignment of vision, a collapse in organizational stability, and the inevitable launch of a new venture.
Vision Misalignment: A Fundamental Conflict Over the ‘Product’
The friction between James and Irving was not a simple ego clash over who got the headlines; it was a fundamental, strategic disagreement between co-founders about the “product” itself—that is, the process of winning basketball games.
The most crucial insights come from former GM David Griffin, who provided a post-mortem on the relationship.
He stated plainly that “Kyrie and LeBron didn’t have drama as individuals,” but that there was “more and more friction in the process in terms of how we go about winning games”.10
Griffin’s analysis was surgical: Irving couldn’t evolve into the “ball dominant play creator that makes people better” while playing alongside “the single most efficient ball dominant play creator in history”.10
This wasn’t about escaping a shadow; it was about a functional redundancy at the highest level of creation.
Irving’s desire to expand his game was fundamentally incompatible with the team’s established, and wildly successful, formula.
Irving’s perspective was that of a co-founder wanting to iterate and evolve.
His cryptic statements about wanting to be “extremely happy in perfecting my craft” 12 and seeing “how far I can go” 20 were about his own growth curve.
He had mastered one role—the deadliest second option in the league—and now wanted to explore his potential as a primary creator, a leader who makes others better.
This was a quest for professional fulfillment.
Conversely, LeBron’s perspective was that of a CEO with a proven, historically dominant method for achieving the company’s goal: winning championships.
He needed Irving to be the ultimate finisher, a role Irving played to perfection.
But after reaching the pinnacle, the very success of their partnership became a catalyst for its dissolution.
Before the 2016 title, the singular goal of winning for Cleveland superseded all personal ambition.
But once that monumental goal was achieved, the “what’s next?” question emerged.
For LeBron, the answer was to repeat the formula.
For Irving, having conquered the team’s ultimate objective, the focus could now shift to his individual journey.
As Griffin noted, “once we won the championship it became clear to him that maybe he was going to need to do something else”.10
Success didn’t act as glue; it granted Irving the validation and freedom to question the entire structure.
Organizational Instability: The Boardroom Collapse
While the vision misalignment created underlying tension, the true catalyst for the breakup was the sudden and chaotic implosion of the Cavaliers’ front office—a boardroom coup that shattered the operational trust within the organization.
The linchpin was David Griffin.
As the COO, he was the trusted buffer between the often-contentious owner, Dan Gilbert, and the team’s superstars.
He maintained open and crucial lines of communication with Irving, managing the delicate ecosystem.16
Griffin’s own description of his tenure as “miserable” and “inorganic and unsustainable” points to the deep-seated dysfunction he was managing behind the scenes.21
His departure on June 19, 2017, after he and Gilbert could “no longer co-exist,” removed that vital layer of trust and created a power vacuum.10
LeBron’s public disappointment with the move only underscored the instability felt by the team’s leaders.11
With Griffin gone, the guardrails were removed.
The new, inexperienced front office, likely at Gilbert’s direction, began exploring trades for stars like Paul George and Jimmy Butler—trade packages that reportedly included Irving’s name.22
When Irving learned of these discussions, he reportedly felt betrayed, believing such a move could never happen without LeBron’s approval.23
This was the final straw.
From a co-founder’s perspective, he had just discovered that the Chairman and CEO were shopping his equity behind his back to acquire a new asset.
This transformed a philosophical disagreement into an existential crisis.
The timeline below makes the cause-and-effect relationship undeniable.
| Date | Event | Source(s) |
| June 12, 2017 | Cavaliers lose NBA Finals to the Golden State Warriors. | 15 |
| June 19, 2017 | GM David Griffin and the Cavaliers mutually part ways. | 11 |
| June 20, 2017 | LeBron James publicly expresses disappointment over Griffin’s departure. | 11 |
| Late June 2017 | Reports surface of Cavs exploring trades for Paul George/Jimmy Butler, with some talks including Irving. | 16 |
| Early July 2017 | Kyrie Irving privately makes his trade request to owner Dan Gilbert. | 3 |
| July 21, 2017 | News of Irving’s trade request breaks publicly, shocking the NBA. | 3 |
The rapid sequence of events shows Irving’s trade request was not a sudden whim but a direct, calculated reaction to the collapse of the organization’s leadership and the subsequent breach of trust.
The New Venture: The Inevitable Founder Spin-Off
Irving’s actions following the boardroom collapse must be viewed through the lens of a founder forcing an exit to start a new venture, not an employee simply changing jobs.
His language was that of an entrepreneur seeking a new company culture.
Demanding a “truthful environment” was a call for transparency, a stark contrast to the political machinations he perceived in Cleveland.13
His desire to be “selfish in figuring out what you want to do” is the classic mindset of a founder needing autonomy to build their own vision.12
His reported ultimatum—threatening to sit out the season and undergo knee surgery if not traded—was an extreme but rational move from this perspective.22
It was not a mere tantrum but a high-leverage tactic to force a “buyout.” When a partnership becomes untenable, a co-founder must sometimes take drastic measures to liquidate their value and gain their release.
In this messy separation, the simplistic “LeBron’s Shadow” narrative became a surprisingly useful tool for all parties.
For Irving, it offered a clean, palatable public reason for his departure, allowing him to avoid airing the organization’s dirty laundry about front-office dysfunction and broken trust.
For the Cavaliers’ front office, it conveniently deflected blame for the breakup onto a player’s ego, drawing attention away from their own role in the chaos that followed Griffin’s exit.
Even for LeBron, while personally frustrating, it reinforced his public image as the singular, sun-like force around which the league orbits.
All key parties had an implicit incentive to let this simplified narrative dominate, as it served their individual interests in moving on, even as it obscured the more complicated truth.
The Fallout: Valuating the Breakup
The disastrous outcome of the trade for both Cleveland and Boston serves as the ultimate proof of the unique, symbiotic value of the original James-Irving “co-founder” partnership.
It was a synergy that could not be easily replicated.
For Cleveland, the return was catastrophic.
Isaiah Thomas, the centerpiece of the deal, was hobbled by a hip injury and a mere shadow of his All-Star self.
Jae Crowder never found his footing.
The assets were quickly flipped in a flurry of mid-season trades that smacked of panic and initiated a full-scale rebuild.2
LeBron himself lamented the deal, stating it was “bad timing for our team” and that Irving’s trade marked “the beginning of the end for everything”.8
For Boston, the experiment also failed.
While they acquired a generational talent, Irving’s leadership style clashed with the team’s young, developing core of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, leading to locker-room unrest and his departure in free agency after just two seasons.2
He was unable to recreate the championship culture, proving that his “product” required the specific chemistry he had with LeBron.
The long-term accounting of the trade for Cleveland reveals a study in diminishing returns, where the haul for a superstar co-founder quickly dissipated into a collection of disparate parts.
The Kyrie Irving Trade Asset Ledger: A Study in Diminishing Returns
| Stage | Assets Received by Cleveland | Subsequent Outcome | Source(s) |
| 1. Initial Trade | Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder, Ante Zizic, BKN 2018 1st Pick | – | 2 |
| 2. Mid-Season Flips | Thomas & Crowder traded out as parts of deals for Jordan Clarkson, Larry Nance Jr., Rodney Hood, George Hill | Initial return dismantled within months. | 26 |
| 3. Long-Term Value | The BKN pick was used to select Collin Sexton. All other major pieces from the initial trade and subsequent flips were eventually traded away or left. | Collin Sexton became the sole significant, long-term asset derived directly from the trade. | 2 |
LeBron’s shock and his attempts to prevent the trade were not the actions of a king betrayed by a courtier.
They were the laments of a CEO who understood that losing his brilliant, if complicated, co-founder was a fatal blow to the company’s mission.
Beyond the Shadow, Into the Founder’s Fire
Viewing Kyrie Irving’s 2017 departure from Cleveland through the paradigm of the Co-Founder’s Dilemma provides a richer, more complete explanation than the simplistic “shadow” narrative ever could.
It was not a flight from greatness but a classic, archetypal schism driven by a confluence of powerful forces:
- Divergent professional visions between two brilliant creators who had already reached the top of their industry together.
- A catastrophic failure of organizational leadership and trust, originating at the ownership level and catalyzed by the removal of a key operational executive.
- The innate entrepreneurial desire of a master craftsman to gain full autonomy over his work, his environment, and his own professional destiny.
Irving’s exit was not an outlier but a story that echoes in the boardrooms of Silicon Valley and the recording studios of London.
It is a timeless case study in the inherent fragility of partnerships built on genius, ambition, and the relentless pressure to win.
His subsequent journey—from Boston to Brooklyn and eventually to another NBA Finals appearance in Dallas—can be seen as a seven-year search for the right co-founding partnership and company culture, a quest that began the moment he decided to step out of the chaotic, crumbling, and triumphant enterprise in Cleveland.27
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