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We don’t know where Kyrie Irving will be traded, but we know that he wants to be a Los Angeles Laker.
Both Stephen A. Smith and Brian Windhorst said as much on ESPN’s airwaves on Thursday, after the bombshell news that Kevin Durant has asked for a trade from the Brooklyn Nets.
“Kyrie Irving is telling everyone he plans go to LA, meaning the Lakers, as soon as he possibly can,” Smith said. “The likelihood is he’ll have to go through this season and then when he becomes a free agent after this season is over he plans on rejoining LeBron James in a Los Angeles Lakers uniform. They’ll have about $70-80 million under the cap. They’ll use it on Kyrie Irving — or so he believes.”
Windhorst concurred that Irving’s plans are to take his talents to Tinseltown.
“Kyrie Irving is out of town as fast as he possibly can and he is focused, as Stephen A. said, on forcing himself to the Lakers,” Windhorst said. “In talking to league executives over the last couple of hours, the value of Kyrie Irving in a trade has absolutely plummeted. They know he’s going to be a pure rental. If he doesn’t want to go to the situation he is [traded] to, it’s unclear what he’ll do. As Stephen A. has said many times, he hasn’t even been motivated to play in places he’s wanted to play, let alone ones he doesn’t.”
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In a different segment, Windhorst also floated the idea that the Lakers have a feasible trade package they could send to the Nets for BOTH Irving and Durant.
With the caveat that we don’t know where Irving and Durant stand as far as if they want to remain playing with each other, Windhorst said, “It has been floated to me by league executives that if they would be kept together that the Lakers would potentially have a package they could trade for both of them. … After seeing what happened when they were together, almost no team with options would do it — but the Lakers don’t have options!”
Subsequently, former Net Richard Jefferson vowed to retire from “NBA Today” should that deal go down.
