Last week, Kyrie Irving presented the Nets with a quandary. Kyrie initially stated that he wanted to return to the Nets. He was seeking for a long-term contract with guaranteed money.
However, his inability to stay active for extended periods of time influenced the Nets to include limitations in a potential contract. Kyrie was not pleased with these terms and chose to request a trade. As you would expect, this was a difficult pill for the Nets to swallow.
Consequently, they decided to make a trade as quickly as possible. They fielded calls all weekend long, and eventually, they traded Kyrie to the Dallas Mavericks. For some, this was a very surprising landing spot for the point guard. After all, Mark Cuban has been reluctant to make big moves. However, they knew that this was the best way to give Luka Doncic a fighting chance in the West. As you can imagine, the Mavs were not the only ones vying for Kyrie. In fact, most people had Kyrie going to the Lakers for a reunion with LeBron James.
According to Marc Stein, it seems like Nets owner Joe Tsai was never going to negotiate with the Lakers in good faith. Stein wrote that the Nets’ objective was to avoid the Lakers. Kyrie preferred the purple and gold, although Tsai felt that it would be a bad idea to acquiesce like that. Moreover, the Lakers were offering a first-round pick and Russell Westbrook. For Tsai, that simply was not enough to justify giving up Kyrie.
LeBron certainly was not happy about this outcome as he took to Twitter with a solemn message. At this point, it is quite clear that the Lakers cannot catch any breaks. Meanwhile, the Nets are going to have a rough go of things until Kevin Durant comes back a few weeks from now.
