Is LeBron James Subtly Recruiting Kyrie Irving To The Lakers?
In the NBA, tampering is defined by the act of a team's representatives speaking to players on rival teams to attempt to lure them to join their team.
We see teams penalized for tampering all the time and most recently, we saw both the Philadelphia 76ers and New York Knicks have to forfeit second-round picks due to tampering and their violation of free agency rules in the offseason.
What is and what is not considered tampering is a massive gray area for organizations across the NBA, yet there are plenty of loopholes to be found and Los Angeles Lakers superstar has been notorious through the years for using some of these loopholes during NBA All-Star Weekend.
What is said behind closed doors in the locker room or what is said during a "guy’s night out" during the All-Star break may be tampering, but this all goes back to the whole idea of if a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? Yeah, it most definitely makes a sound, but if nobody is around to hear it, technically you can’t prove there was sound.
It is the same situation in the NBA in regards to tampering, where if there is no text, email, phone call or any kind of record that a conversation was held, then you technically cannot prove that something was done.
LeBron James is a superstar and in many people’s eyes, he has cemented his spot as the greatest player of all-time by becoming the NBA’s all-time leading scorer. The relationships and friendships he has with players around the league is extremely vast and while he fools around and just simply has fun during All-Star Weekend, he is also extremely smart and a mastermind when it comes to his own agenda.
Kyrie Irving was recently traded from the Brooklyn Nets to the Dallas Mavericks ahead of the trade deadline this season. When things were not looking good in Brooklyn this past offseason and it seemed like Irving could have been on the move, the Lakers were at the forefront of teams that wanted to pursue him.
This really was not a shocker to anyone in the league, as Los Angeles had been looking to replace Russell Westbrook with another star player and James had made his intentions to play with Kyrie again clear. Then, when Irving requested a trade ahead of the trade deadline, the Lakers once again inquired about Kyrie and wanted to get a deal done, but Nets’ owner Joseph Tsai was not having any of it and did not want to send the star guard to the Lakers for multiple reasons, one of which was because he had no reason to try and help Los Angeles.
Now a member of the Dallas Mavericks, Irving’s future still remains a question mark, as the Mavs have surprisingly said that they will play out the rest of the season before addressing Irving’s long-term future. If you are going to trade for a guy of his caliber and give up a ton of assets in return, you would think the team would look to ink Kyrie Irving to a long-term deal, so what is the hold-up here?
One key reason why a long-term deal is not on the table from the Mavs’ point of view is the fact that Irving has not played a lot of games through the years and they want to make sure he is fully committed to them. Obviously this makes a lot of sense, as Dallas does not want to make the same mistakes Brooklyn did, but they are taking a massive risk because Irving will be a free agent this offseason and LeBron James has clearly zeroed in on his former teammate as priority number one for Los Angeles when the offseason begins.
James has backed up Irving time and time again on social media and their friendship still persists after the time they spent together in Cleveland, as both players have mentioned one another in their press conferences this season.
To put the icing on the cake and tie everything back to this past All-Star Weekend, LeBron James selected Kyrie Irving in the All-Star Game draft, which was held right before the game itself on Sunday.
Sure, Kyrie is a great player and LeBron wants to play with his friend, but if you do not think this was a strategic play by James, you are crazy!
Every single year he has picked his team as a captain during the All-Star Game, James has put a lot of thought into the players he chooses and he has not been shy about drafting upcoming free agents and players he wants his team to target in offseason trade talks, as he did so with DeMar DeRozan in 2022, Damian Lillard in 2021 and Russell Westbrook in 2020.
Following the All-Star Game, LeBron was asked about his relationship with Kyrie and James talked about playing with Irving in this season’s All-Star Game.
“Yeah, you know it was the first time for us being teammates so you know,” LeBron said with a sarcastic grin. “Nah, it is always great to team back up with Kyrie. Obviously you guys know how I feel about him both on the court and off the court, so it is always good to see him. I am very proud of him and the man he has become in his life right now. All-Star Weekend is always great to get an opportunity to be around the guys you watch play, admire play, compete against, but that you just love the way they play the game of basketball. Tonight was another instance.”
As stated before, LeBron James definitely wanted to play with Kyrie Irving during the All-Star Game because he is a great player and a friend of his, but the business side of LeBron did this to plant a seed.
Drafting Kyrie and speaking highly of him is just simply letting the rest of the league know that LeBron wants to team back up with him in a not-so subtle way that does not violate any tampering rules whatsoever.
Watching how this whole Kyrie Irving situation in Dallas plays out the rest of the year will be very interesting, but LeBron James always makes sure that he has the upper-hand and as things stand right now, Kyrie Irving joining the Los Angeles Lakers in the offseason is still a very real possibility.
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