‘Team-Killer’? Mavs’ Kyrie Irving ‘Out of NBA' Next Year, Predicts Shock Jock Craig Carton

Dallas Mavericks point guard Kyrie Irving started in this year's All-Star Game and is playing at a high level. Yet radio’s Craig Carton thinks Irving is about done in the NBA.

Dallas Mavericks All-Star Kyrie Irving has enraptured NBA lovers with breathtaking offensive performances over the course of his 12-year career, but not without also enraging some of those same observers.

And one of those observers. WFAN Radio New York’s Craig Carton, sees Irving's days in the league coming to an abrupt end:

“That is a team killer right there,” said Carton, at least as controversial in his business as Irving is in his. “I think Kyrie is out of the league next year. I know the Lakers because of LeBron (James might be interested), but how many other teams would be willing to commit the type of money he’s going to demand? Unless he’s willing to suck it up and play for a veteran-minimum type of deal, which he won’t, I think he’s going to be out of the league.”

Insinuating that Irving, who just turned 31, may have to capitulate to a veteran's minimum makes for an odd prediction. A perennial All-Star averaging 26.9 points and 5.5 assists needing to settle for such a contract is unfathomable.

Carton's prediction is surely predicated on Irving's divorces from franchises; just part of his controversial history - which includes conflicts with Kevin Durant and James Harden’s on the Brooklyn Nets, who at the trade deadline shipped Irving to Dallas.

The Luka Doncic-led Mavericks have struggled mightily since his arrival (they created another "clusterf***'' for themselves with a Wednesday loss at Philly), and Irving, supremely gifted, is set to be a free agent this summer when he is eligible to get a contract worth for $273 million over five years.

We don’t think Dallas views him as a “team-killer” by any means, and LeBron’s Lakers are reportedly not planning a Kyrie pursuit.

So in terms of “facts”? As unpredictable as Kyrie Irving’s behavior can be, the projection of him retiring, or of him being wholly unwanted and therefore forced out of the NBA, sounds more like shock-jock radio than it does fact-based opinion.

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