Lakers 'Aren't Interested' in Pursuing Kyrie Irving or Mavs' LeBron James Trade
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DALLAS — The top focus for the Dallas Mavericks this offseason remains to retain the services of impending free agent Kyrie Irving.
Irving, who averaged 26.9 points, 5.0 rebounds, and 6.0 assists last season, is eligible to sign a five-year, $272.9 million contract if he were to re-sign with the Mavs. If he was to depart and sign outright with a different team, he is eligible to sign a four-year, $201.7 million contract.
After checking back in with Lakers sources, Johan Buva of The Athletic reported the Lakers "aren't interested" in acquiring Irving this summer.
“The Lakers, meanwhile, maintained on Monday that they aren’t interested in adding Irving this summer, according to multiple team sources who aren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter,” Buha wrote.
The Lakers' front office remained consistent in messaging that maintaining the young core they've established is the priority for the offseason. Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura, and D'Angelo Russell are all set to reach free agency this summer.
“I would say this resoundingly clear, our intentions are to keep our core of young guys together,” Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka said during his media exit interview. “We saw incredible growth and achievement by Rui (Hachimura), Austin — I could go down the list — Vando, D’Lo. We have a lot of great young players and we want to do our best to fit the puzzle together...Again, without talking specific players, we’ll do our best to keep this group intact and growing and getting better each year.”
The latest on the Irving front came on Monday when it was reported by Shams Charania of The Athletic that Irving had reached out to his former teammate, LeBron James, to gauge interest in joining him on the Mavs.
"Kyrie Irving has reached out to Lakers star LeBron James in attempts to see if James would come to Dallas," Charania reported. "Irving is a free agent this offseason."
Buha reported the pathway for the Mavs to acquire James via trade is one that would require improbable outcomes. The read of the situation from that perspective is that for Irving and James to join forces again, the best option would be to do so with the Lakers, while Irving takes a paycut to facilitate it.
"Despite Irving’s recruiting efforts, the cleanest path to James and Irving playing together remains in Los Angeles, either by Irving taking a discount to sign with the Lakers in free agency or by Dallas sending him there in a sign-and-trade," Buha wrote.
Jaden Hardy and Josh Green are two young players that could be of interest to an extent, but regardless, this is a team that has plenty of unfavorable contracts and only the 10th pick and a 2027 first-round selection as draft capital eligible to be traded outright this offseason.
There is no way around James' contract that kicks in for the 2023-24 season, which will earn him $46.9 million. A buyout would leave the Lakers with dead cap spending and they'd be losing an all-time great and international icon for nothing in return.
Grant Afseth is a Dallas Mavericks reporter for DallasBasketball.com and an NBA reporter for NBA Analysis Network. He previously covered the Indiana Pacers and NBA for CNHI's Kokomo Tribune and various NBA teams for USA TODAY Sports Media Group. Follow him on Twitter (@grantafseth), Facebook (@grantgafseth), and YouTube (@grantafseth).
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