Report: Kyrie Irving Contract Talks Are Getting ‘Acrimonious’

A new report by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN laid out how things are currently going as Kyrie Irving and the Brooklyn Nets talk through a potential contract extension. Irving has a player option for the 2022-23 season, but reports in recent days indicate that he might not return to Brooklyn this year, with teams like the Los Angeles Lakers interested in bringing him on board.

Wojnarowski’s report on NBA Today certainly makes it sound like things are not going particularly well if Brooklyn wants to keep Irving around, going as far to say that the situation is getting “acrimonious” and raising concerns about Kevin Durant’s future, too.

“The concern right now for, I think, the Nets organization is negotiations — listen, people try to gain leverage,” Wojnarowski said. “If you’re Kyrie Irving, you are trying to get the Nets to give you a longer-term deal with more guaranteed money than they want to give, the Nets are trying to go in the other direction — shorter deal, incentivized, because he just hasn’t been on the floor as much as they’d like the last couple years.

“This is getting acrimonious, and I think that’s the concern when you look at not just Kyrie Irving’s future in Brooklyn, but Kevin Durant’s future and whether they can hold this thing together right now,” Wojnarowski continued.

A report on Thursday from Shams Charania of The Athletic indicated that the expectation is Irving is not going to stick around in Brooklyn, but this certainly makes it sound like the two sides are trying to figure something out. The problem, however, is that it doesn’t look like either side is close to what the other one wants.