CHARLOTTE, N.C. — When Kyrie Irving landed in Charlotte for his sixth NBA All-Star appearance, he probably didn’t realize he’d stand out for a reason other than his game. His presence shined bright on Friday night when he walked into Bojangles Arena to coach the NBA Cares Special Olympics team.
Irving would soon find out one of his players was Ashley Aldrich, a Milford native as well as the Massachusetts representative for the Special Olympics Unified Sports All-Star experience. And most importantly, she's a huge fan of the Celtics guard.
“I was shocked when I saw him,” said the 29-year-old while smiling. “I said, 'You’ve got to be kidding me!' ”
Still beaming less than 24 hours after the experience, Aldrich pulled her phone from her pocket and revealed her new home-screen wallpaper: a photo of her and Irving at the game.
“He was teaching me some of his tricks that he does," she said. "He actually had a moment where we both were trying to do it, but he told me I had years to go before I become like him.”
When asked about the coaching experience from his lens, Irving immediately chuckled. In both of his coaching stints — the Special Olympics game and at the helm of Team USA in the Rising Stars Challenge — you could find him courtside, arms crossed, anxiously watching his players perform. Barely finding a moment to stand still, Irving acknowledged how his mannerisms were similar to his Celtics coach, Brad Stevens.
“Yeah, I got a lot of comments about that," Irving said. "I didn’t sit down. I watched Mike Malone sit down, I watched Mike Budenholzer sit down the whole time and here I am pacing back and forth.”
Even though he was constrained to the sidelines, his name still found its way on the floor. Most of the players in the Special Olympics game were rocking the Kyrie 5’s “Just Do It” sneakers. Aldrich, making sure to lace them up again the following day, shared that Irving had signed the inside of hers.
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Coaching in the same state where he went to college about two hours away at Duke, Irving had an undefeated weekend.
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Aldrich and the away team, stacked with NBA legends such as Dikembe Mutombo and Ron Harper, pulled off a 27-26 win over the home team. Later on, Jayson Tatum and the Team USA Rising Stars would go on to beat Team World, 161-144. Irving, with 13 points, nine rebounds and six assists, also was part of a victorious Team LeBron in a 178-164 victory over Team Giannis in the All-Star Game on Sunday.
Asked about Irving's overall coaching performance, Tatum, his Celtics teammate, analyzed it by saying, “I mean first coaching gig, he got a win, not too bad.”
Jennifer Walsh, the local program coordinator and coach for the Milford Special Olympics, also gave Irving’s performance a thumbs up. “Ashley being coached by Kyrie was a dream come true. All she talked about was how excited she was to watch him in the All-Star Game and when he walked onto the floor to coach her, she was in utter shock. She will be talking about her time with Kyrie forever. It meant the world to her!”
Aldrich agreed, “I think he was one of the best coaches I ever had.”
The basketball world already knows Kyrie Irving’s All-Star presence on the court, but Kyrie the coach showed he can have an impact standing just inches off the floor as well.
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