Lakers Among Three Teams Interested in Trading for Kyrie Irving Per NBA Insider

The Lakers are one of the three teams said to have considerable interest in trying to trade Kyrie Irving.

Talk about starting off a Monday with some trade rumor sizzle. In his latest column on The Athletic, NBA expert Shams Charania teed off the week with covering the current state of the Kyrie Irving-Brooklyn Nets relationship. Irving can opt out of the final year of his current contract at the end of this month and become a free agent, or, he can opt in and try to work out an extension with Brooklyn.

However, Charania reports that those extension conversations are at an impasse at the moment. The NBA reporter then dropped the Monday nugget that everybody is talking about:

"The Lakers, Knicks and Clippers are expected to be among the interested suitors if Irving heads elsewhere, multiple sources tell The Athletic."

If the Lakers were to have any chance of acquiring Irving, they would need Kyrie to opt into the final year of his deal and then work with Brooklyn on finding a trade partner for him. LA acquiring Kyrie via sign-and-trade is significantly more complex, due to it hard capping the Lakers, than a straight up trade with Brooklyn with Kyrie under contract for one final year.

"If Irving would opt in, Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka would have to satisfy the collective bargaining agreement’s salary-matching rules, meaning if Irving’s $36.6 million was the only incoming salary, the Lakers could send anywhere from $29.3 million to $45.8 million to the Nets and/or a third team in a legal transaction."

The degree of difficulty on a potential Kyrie trade seems high, and LA would certainly need assurances that Irving would be willing to sign long term with the Lakers if the organization does move heaven and Earth to acquire him.

There's sure to be more to come on the Kyrie Irving front, and perhaps, this summer won't be all about Russell Westbrook's fit on the Lakers roster.