My “2015 Kyrie Irving” Moment: When Plans Go Sideways
Man, 2015. That year still sticks with me, especially when I think about Kyrie Irving. Not just because of the basketball, though. It was a real lesson for me, a hard one, learned through something I was pouring my heart into.
So, here’s the deal. I was super hyped for the NBA Finals that year. LeBron was back in Cleveland, they had a solid team, and I was all in. So much so, that I decided to organize this big community viewing party series for the Finals. We’re talking projector, BBQ, the whole nine yards for every game. I spent weeks planning it. Weeks! Getting permissions for the local park, coordinating food vendors (just local folks, nothing fancy), even setting up a little kids’ basketball hoop.
My “practice” here was really about project management, I guess, even though I didn’t call it that back then. It was about:
- Planning every little detail.
- Getting people excited and involved.
- Trying to create something cool for my neighborhood.
Game 1. The atmosphere was electric. We had a great turnout. Everything was going perfectly. And then, BAM. Kyrie goes down. Overtime. He’s out. You could feel the air just deflate from everyone, myself included. It wasn’t just about the game anymore, or even the Cavs’ chances. Selfishly, my first thought after the initial shock was, “Oh no, my viewing parties.”
Sounds silly, right? But I’d built this whole thing up. The narrative was supposed to be this triumphant Cleveland run. With Kyrie, a key piece, suddenly gone for the series, the whole vibe shifted. It felt like the story I was trying to help tell just got a really sad chapter written, and I wasn’t sure how to continue “selling” the excitement.
The next few days were a scramble. Do I cancel the rest? Do I try to re-energize everyone? People were bummed. Attendance for Game 2 was way down. The food guys were asking if we should scale back. My perfectly laid out plan, the one I’d been so proud of, was in tatters. It was like my entire project got its knee fractured, just like Kyrie.
I ended up pushing through, but it wasn’t the same. We still had people show up, but the energy was different. More subdued, more hoping-against-hope rather than the confident celebration I’d envisioned. I learned a ton, though. Mostly about how you can plan all you want, but you can’t control the X-factor. That one thing that comes out of nowhere and changes everything.
It also taught me about adapting. We changed the tone a bit. Focused more on resilience, on supporting the team no matter what. It wasn’t the victory parade I’d mentally planned for my little event series, but it became something else. A lesson in rolling with the punches, I guess.
So yeah, “2015 Kyrie Irving” for me isn’t just a basketball memory. It’s a reminder of that project, that feeling of everything going sideways, and the scramble to figure things out. It made me a bit more realistic about my grand plans, that’s for sure. Always gotta have a Plan B, or C, or just be ready to wing it when your star player (or key component) is suddenly out of the game.
