Here’s everything we’ve learned about Kyrie Irving since his Christmas 2016 game-winner

On Christmas Day 2016, nearly a year to the day, then-Cavaliers star Kyrie Irving drove to the rim, turned around and faded away over Klay Thompson to swish a mid-range shot that sunk the Warriors. That shot gave the basketball world some false hope that the Kevin Durant-Warriors weren’t going to take the Finals over the Cavs with ease. Obviously, that wasn’t the case, and a lot has changed since.

In 365 days, fans have learned more about Irving than maybe any other athlete in the world in that span. He revealed his jealousy over the attention LeBron James garnered when he made a trade request to Boston. He preached “wokeness” and round earth denial in several interviews. Most importantly, he has shown us his ability to lead a team on his own with the Celtics’ success. Irving has transformed from merely James’ counterpart to begin his own legacy.

This Christmas, we look at Irving — the person and the player — differently than last, now that he’s given us a glimpse inside his mind. We are all very much woke because of it.

Here’s everything Kyrie taught us in 2017:

All the way back in February, Irving took center stage after he went on Richard Jefferson’s podcast to reveal his disbelief in the Earth’s roundness.

He was dead serious.

Kyrie: I think people should do their own research, man. Then hopefully they’ll either back my belief or throw it in the water. I think what I think is interesting for people to find out.

Reporter: You’ve seen pictures of the planet though, right? Like it’s a circle.

Kyrie: I’ve seen a lot of things that my educational system had said was real, but turned out to be completely fake. So I don’t mind going against the grain in terms of my thoughts and what I believe in.

This started the conversation on the man behind the athlete we had watched put the ball in the hoop to win games for the last seven years. This is where the Kyrie renaissance truly began.

Some believe he was just making his flat Earth belief up for attention. A Cleveland.com reporter, Joe Vardon, mentioned how upset Irving used to be that other reporters flocked to LeBron instead of him for quotes on politics and racial and social issues.

Then Richard Jefferson also defended Irving, saying his statement was made more as an attempt to get people to think outside the box.

Irving walked back his flat-Earth beliefs a few months later, when he said in a CBS interview, “All I want to do is be able to have that open conversation. It was all an exploration tactic. It literally spun the world — your guys’ world — it spun it into a frenzy and proved exactly what I thought it would do in terms of how this works... Do your own research, don’t come and ask me. At the end of the day, you’re going to feel and believe the way you want to feel. But don’t knock my life over that.”

So was this all just a bunch of trolling by Kyrie?

A month after that interview, he went on UConn basketball coach Geno Auriemma’s podcast, and sort of went back to his old ways after it was pointed out that pictures of a round earth exist.

“I’m saying, Coach, that you don’t even know if they’re real or not,” Irving said. “I just wanted to have that conversation. That’s it. I wanted to actually know or ask other individuals, Bro — excuse me — Coach and Sue, do you really think that this actually happened? I don’t know. I don’t know, either. I just want to know.”

Who the heck knows what this never-ending saga was ever about.

There didn’t seem to be a good basketball reason for Kyrie — or anyone for that matter — wanting to leave one of, if not the greatest ever to play the game. LeBron James has won three championships, and as long as he’s alive, any team with him on it will be in the running again. With LeBron on the team, the game comes easier for everyone around him to stick to their specific role, while he cleans up the mess. Playing with LeBron James seems on the outside to be pretty freakin’ fun!

Irving wanted more, though. So after simmering tension hurt the Cavaliers’ season, Irving requested out of a team that had been to three straight Finals.

He didn’t want to live in The King’s shadow even after he hit the game-winning shot of the 2016 Finals. He didn’t want to hear it from LeBron anymore when he had zero assists in a game. He knew he could be so much more somewhere else.

Irving reportedly wanted to be the focal point of an offense and cement his own legacy.

That says a lot about how Irving thinks of himself as one of the NBA’s best players.

He’s already showing us why he made his decision in Boston.

Kyrie gave us quotes on quotes that were wordy, confusing, and yet, often left us wanting more. He opened his mind and let the weirdness out like few others have.

There was the time he told us that if you’re very much woke, there are no such things as distractions:

The time he took 1,000 words to (politely) tell off Max Kellerman:

And then just a few more:

Then he told us his favorite artists from when he was a kid:

Irving told Bleacher Report about how he became awake after going vegan:

“It works,” Irving tells B/R Mag. “I mean, I’m not eating a whole bunch of animals anymore. Once you become awake, you don’t see that stuff anymore.”

There’s a lot to even dissect just from his Instagram bio:

Kyrie Irving was entirely himself in 2017, and created a brand as the NBA’s quirky guy seven years into his career. He’s a full-package superstar now, leading a team of youngsters atop the Eastern Conference all while being the center of attention he couldn’t receive in Cleveland.

His numbers are nearly identical to what they were a season ago, averaging 25 points, five assists and three rebounds, but as an improved defensive guard, Boston is rolling with him at the helm. Maybe they’re just woke.

2017 was the year of Kyrie Irving.