Lakers News: Writers Read Tea Leaves On Possibility Of Kyrie Irving Signing With LA
Most folks have moved on from the idea of Kyrie Irving's dream coming true and winding up in LA and have instead been talking themselves into Chris Paul signing with the team following news of a potential Phoenix release.
It really is interesting to see because you can make the argument that if the Lakers started their 2022-2023 season off with the same squad they assembled at the trade deadline, they may still be in the playoffs right now. Most experts would look at this situation and advice LA's front office to tinker with very little... if anything.
But let's be real here. LeBron James and the rest of the Lakers' organization had a championship on their minds despite being a seven seed and he made this quite clear with his retirement teases following their final game of the year. This was a clear message to the front office to give him a reason to stay... potentially bringing in Irving if needed to.
James May Be His Only Supporter
As I mentioned early, the Lakers already have something special going on and maybe they shouldn't tinker with it. They already had the opportunity to land Irving at the 2023 trade deadline and even though we may never get an exact answer, it was reported that they refused to part ways with Austin Reaves and Max Christie and that's why the deal did not get done.
I think this says a lot about the Lakers' front office right now and how they still want to be in a good spot once LeBron James retires or leaves to a different squad. There are few point guards in the league that are more skilled than Uncle Drew but he is 31-years-old and consistently misses games every year due to injuries/off-court drama.
And The Athletic's Jovan Buha believes that James' power will not be enough this time to get his former teammate to LA.
"I think if you gave LeBron truth serum, he’d love to play with Kyrie again. I don’t think that’s a secret. He was pushing for Kyrie at the Feb. 9 trade deadline. He made public comments about it in a postgame media availability. The previous summer, he wanted the Lakers to trade Russell Westbrook for Kyrie.As my colleague Tim Cato reported in one of his mailbags, Dallas has little to no incentive to help the Lakers out in this situation. The cleanest way to do it for L.A. would be a double sign-and-trade where they’d send D’Angelo Russell to Dallas, and they’d get back Kyrie. But why would Dallas do that? They don’t have interest in Russell. He’s coming off a disappointing Conference Finals."
(Via Hoops Hype)
LA has options and that is never a bad thing... let's just hope they make the right choices.
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