Lakers News: Insider Reveals Kyrie Irving Could Be Headed To LA This Summer

Ugh.

This must be said: your Los Angeles Lakers have a point guard problem.

After already dipping heavily into an "Every Other Davis" approach to games in the first two rounds of these playoffs, $31.4 million starting point guard D'Angelo Russell just is not cutting it in the Western Conference Finals. In this series, though, he hasn't been good on any day. He's averaging a brutal seven points per game on .296/.143/.750 shooting splits, four assists, two rebounds and 0.7 steals a night, while being perennially hunted on defense.

His backup, Dennis Schröder, has fared better as a solid defender who can occasionally slash to the rack (he's not much of a three-point shooter), but is not a starting-level point guard, either -- although he may be called upon to replace D-Lo in that capacity today.

We know LeBron James wanted the Lakers to trade for now-Dallas Mavericks All-Star Kyrie Irving before the deadline because he said as much. When D'Angelo Russell initially touched down in LA, he submitted totally solid stats and helped Los Angeles spread the floor, while not being the "locker room vampire" that previous pricey Lakers point guard Russell Westbrook was alleged to be, or the controversial Irving, who has said some egregiously, dangerously dumb stuff over the years about Judaism and the shape of the planet, while frequently abandoning his various teams.

Now, Brian Windhorst of ESPN has revealed on today's "Get Up" broadcast that Irving is still at least open to a reunion with his former Cleveland Cavaliers teammate LeBron James. Irving's fellow 2011 Cavs lottery pick Tristan Thompson is a deep-bench center in LA, though there's no guarantee he comes back next season. Irving had apparently listed the Lakers as his preferred trade destination from the Brooklyn Nets earlier this year, and LA had apparently offered up both of its very tantalizing available future first-round draft picks in 2027 and 2029, but Brooklyn owner Rich Cho, feeling petty, did not want to ship him off to his preferred landing spot.

.@WindhorstESPN says there's a possibility the Lakers could go after Kyrie Irving and reunite with LeBron 👀 pic.twitter.com/IaoMPwdTNE

— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) May 22, 2023

"Well the thing is, the point guard position is extremely important for them, the way that they play," Windhorst explained. "And you can't really ask LeBron to play point guard as much as you did in the past because the strain is too much. So D'Angelo Russell... has had moments where he's been good. But if the Lakers are going to invest in him in a major way, it may cause them to pause. And let's just be honest here: it behooves Kyrie Irving to have the Lakers chasing him."

"The significant reason why he left the Nets was because they wouldn't give him the type of contract he wanted," Windhorst continued. "He wants to apply pressure to the Dallas Mavericks to give him that contract, and what better way than having the Lakers showing interest in him? And we know this because he showed up in a playoff game, right there, just in case people weren't talking about it enough, he wanted everybody to know, 'Hey I'm checking out this Lakers situation, okay?'"

"To do it, they would have to pretty much jettison everybody they just picked up, including [playoff breakout] Rui Hachimura," Windhorst offered. "There are sign-and-trade scenarios where if they could get Dallas' cooperation and maybe sweeten that pot for them, that they could keep more of their roster together."

"It also would require him maybe to take less than the max, which I'm not sure he's got an appetite to do, since he just asked for a trade out of Brooklyn when that was on the table. But I would be remiss not to point out that that is something that is possible and on the table for the Lakers if they want to go that way."

There are other, less crazy point guards available on the open market that LA could at least take a crack at, namely the Toronto Raptors' Fred VanVleet (who has a player option for 2023-24) and the Philadelphia 76ers' James Harden, although Harden is about as reliable in playoff closeout games as Russell has been in the Western Conference Finals this year. It might behoove LA to bring in one of those names over Russell or Irving, while retaining Schröder, who like D-Lo is also unrestricted free agent, as a backup.

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