Lakers Rumors: Nets Owner Didn’t Want To Send Kyrie Irving To LA

Joe Tsai put his foot down.

A LeBron James-Kyrie Irving union in SoCal was apparently something that both LeBron James and Kyrie Irving wanted.

But it was not to be.

After demanding a trade from the Brooklyn Nets, problematic All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving apparently had one particular Western Conference landing spot in mind.

Per Marc Stein, Nets owner Joe Tsai made it a point to not send Irving to his "preferred destination" (Stein's words), your Los Angeles Lakers. LA at the time, of course, was in desperate of a good point guard, having committed $60.1 million to Russell Westbrook and Patrick Beverley (who are, as we now see, buyout market-level players). 

All-NBA Los Angeles power forward LeBron James of course served alongside Irving on the Cleveland Cavaliers, from 2014-2017. During their time together (along with All-Star big man Kevin Love), the duo led the Cavs to three consecutive NBA Finals bouts against the Golden State Warriors. They won one title together, in 2016. Irving demanded a trade out of a great situation (sound familiar?), and the Cavs felt compelled to flip him in the 2017 offseason. James put Cleveland on his back and returned to the Finals anyway, in 2018.

The pettiness that Tsai exhibited to refuse to deal Irving to LA is all the more interesting given that he subsequently flipped Kevin Durant to the Phoenix Suns, which apparently was exactly where KD wanted to go.

James publicly expressed his disappointed that Irving was not sent to Los Angeles. Given the money that would need to be exchanged, it was clear that he essentially was saying he was disappointed Russell Westbrook had not been shipped out to Brooklyn. You can imagine how this went over. Now, the Lakers have rid themselves of Westbrook and Beverley, and have outfitted themselves with several quality role players, including guard D'Angelo Russell, a much, much better fit alongside James and Anthony Davis than either Westbrook or Beverley at this stage in their careers. 

Is D'Angelo Russell (or Malik Beasley, Jarred Vanderbilt, Mo Bamba or Davon Reed) a better player individually than Kyrie Irving? No, but at least you can count on him to show up.

Irving, now with the Dallas Mavericks, will be an unrestricted free agent this summer if he doesn't ink a veteran's extension with the Mavs during the season. One would imagine the possibility remains that he could reach a sign-and-trade agreement with the Lakers still, assuming LA could convince D'Angelo Russell to agree. Again, this may not be the savviest course action for the Lakers. But it's not like they're going to listen to me!