Kyrie Irving’s tenure with the Brooklyn Nets seems like it could be coming to an end. After things hit a snag in talks on a contract extension between Irving and the Nets, Shams Charania of The Athletic reported that the expectation is Irving — who apparently has a list of teams he’d like to join in a sign-and-trade — will start looking for a new team.
Now, this is Kyrie Irving, so who knows what will actually happen, but one team that has some amount of interest in bringing him on board has been rumored to be the Los Angeles Lakers. While it would require a pretty substantial pay cut for Irving, who would have to give up about $30 million to team up with LeBron James again, Sam Amick of The Athletic reported that the buzz linking him to a change in coasts has legs.
Kyrie Irving to the Lakers chatter is “somewhat substantive,” according to @sam_amick.
“You’ve got people within the league actually thinking … ‘Man, I think he might find a way to get back with LeBron.'” pic.twitter.com/ZTNyf2SAjq
— The Athletic NBA (@TheAthleticNBA) June 24, 2022
“The Lakers noise — again, really tough to pull off, but it’s somewhat substantive there,” Amick said. “You’ve got people within the league actually thinking, like, ‘Man, I think he might find a way to get back with LeBron,’ and I do get the sense that … LeBron would open that door, and we’ll see if they can pull it off.”
Irving and James were, of course, teammates in Cleveland and won a championship in 2016.