Kyrie Irving is set to be an unrestricted free agent this summer, and despite his considerable talents no one is quite sure what market will be out there for him.
The Dallas Mavericks are the one team we know will be trying hard to sign Irving, simply because they gave up so much to land him at the trade deadline back in February. Outside of Dallas, it’s not abundantly clear what teams will have interest in giving Kyrie the kind of long-term, big money deal he’s seeking. One of the teams expected to be in the mix was the Los Angeles Lakers, who have been connected to Irving for the last year as both he and LeBron James seem very open to a reunion, but with L.A. apparently focused on bringing back the likes of Austin Reaves and some of their other free agents, they won’t have the money to extend Irving a significant deal.
That apparently hasn’t ended Kyrie’s quest to play with LeBron again, and after James made eyebrow raising comments about his future after the Lakers’ loss in the Western Conference Finals, Irving has reportedly tried to convince LeBron to try and make a move to join him in Dallas, per Shams Charania and Chris Haynes.
Sources: Kyrie Irving has reached out to Lakers star LeBron James in attempts to see if James would come to Dallas. Irving is a free agent this offseason.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) June 5, 2023
Sources: Mavs were preparing to make an offer for LeBron James last season when Lakers were spiraling. But Lakers made a string of trades near deadline that changed trajectory of their season. https://t.co/lqZLIXDPax
— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) June 5, 2023
If your first instinct here is to laugh, you are not alone. That has been the general response from everyone to seeing these reports.
How the Mavs would convince the Lakers to trade LeBron James to them without sending either of Kyrie or Luka Doncic back is beyond me. This is the best package Dallas could offer to make it work financially (and it could only happen on or after Draft night).
That certainly doesn’t seem like a deal the Lakers would be jumping to make, but we’ve seen crazy things happen before. Having this out there a month before free agency opens is going to lead to some very funny conversations and arguments on sports talk television and radio, so congrats to them for having something to talk about beyond the Finals. It’s also incredible how both Haynes and Charania got this nugget of info at the exact same time, and I’ll let you, the reader, try to figure out how and why that might happen at this very moment in time in the midst of the NBA Finals.