The Kyrie Irving saga keeps getting better by the day, as we keep learning more details about what could happen with the Brooklyn Nets point guard. Kyrie and the Nets had an impasse that opened the door for new opportunities for the veteran guard, and now everybody could make a run for him.
The 2022 NBA free agency is around the corner and now 29 teams have chances to land Irving. Some say the Los Angeles Lakers have the upper hand in this situation, but there’s a catch if they want to link up with Kyrie. He’ll need to take a $30 million pay cut to join the Purple and Gold, which is hard to see right now.
Still, many people believe the 17-time NBA champions have a legit shot at this, and recent rumors only fuel this notion. According to NBA insider Marc Stein, people around the league claim that Kyrie has already contacted LeBron James to team up in Los Angeles next season.
Report: “There are credible rumblings in circulation that Irving, for starters, has indeed had some recent contact with Lakers star LeBron James, his former Cleveland teammate, to presumably discuss a potential reunion in Hollywood,” via @TheSteinLine
(https://t.co/WnKH6fkNsV) pic.twitter.com/4ZFEhQRJBt
— Hoop Central (@TheHoopCentral) June 22, 2022
“There are credible rumblings in circulation that Irving, for starters, has indeed had some recent contact with Lakers star LeBron James, his former Cleveland teammate, to presumably discuss a potential reunion in Hollywood,” Stein writes.
Given how things ended between LeBron and Kyrie in Cleveland, this was hard to see before the end of the 2021/22 season. But, this is the NBA and anything can happen in this bizarre league. We could even see a Kevin Durant-Russell Westbrook reunion in Brooklyn and Kyrie re-joining LeBron in Los Angeles.
Things could work very well for the Lakers if they move the right pieces, but it’s still too early to tell. The Lakers couldn’t make the playoffs last season; Irving and James work incredibly well together, they won a title before, and both seem to be looking for something new, so this move would make a lot of sense for everybody involved.
We have to sit and wait for the outcome of this, but as things stand right now, the Lakers have a solid chance to sign Irving this summer.
