Once again Kyrie and LeBron James fates are bound to intertwine in the aftermath of his imminent exit from Boston Celtics this offseason.
As a free agent to be, Irving is eligible to sign for any team he wishes and many teams will queue for his services or in modern idiom terms -his talents.
When a star like Kyrie moves, ripples are felt round the entire league especially for teams in contention for a title. One of such teams is the Los Angeles Lakers led by Kyrie’s former teammate at Cleveland Cavaliers- LeBron James.
LeBron’s struggles in his first year with Lakers are mainly down to contrasting timelines with him and a couple of veterans like Lance Stephenson and Rajon Rondo and young up and coming players like Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball and Kyle Kuzma.
Despite possessing talent, the Lakers youngsters have been forced into growing up fast and win a lot of games which isn’t the easiest thing to achieve in the NBA. Obviously, there is a major need for three point shooting and free throw conversion especially late in games.
Presently they are out of the playoffs spots and that has a lot to do with the absence of a go to second scoring option.
Thanks to Anthony Davis dissatisfaction with New Orleans Pelicans the Lakers had a big chance to trade for the 2012 first overall pick to fill that spot. And thanks to Davis agent Rich Paul who doubles as LeBron’s agent, the Lakers had a big chance of getting him.
However, the Pelicans refused to trade and left Lakers broken after all players but LeBron were made available for the trade. One notion behind Pelicans refusal to engage with the Lakers was to maximize their chances of landing a better trade package from Boston Celtics. Boston has the best collection of young talents on its roster plus a hoard of draft picks to get just about any player available in a trade.
Since Davis is a top tier player in the league, a lot of teams want him including Boston but without Kyrie on the Celtics roster, Boston has no chance of getting Davis to stay long term when his contract runs out in 2020. With a fellow star like Kyrie staying on beyond this season, Boston can trade for Davis with a chance of making another run for the NBA title and quite possibly convince him to sign a long term contract with them.
In light of recent struggles with Boston who have lost four straight games, Irving looks and sounds non committal to a longer stay in Boston. That means a trade for Davis would be a wasted venture since there wouldn’t be any attraction to get him to stay. This is good for the Lakers since a Boston indifference to a trade takes its biggest threat to get Davis out of the way.
That should mean the Lakers can trade a couple of their young core and draft picks to get Davis from New Orleans Pelicans. Such a proposition is in sharp contrast to what pertained in the midseason trade period where all five members of Lakers core were available for a trade. With Kyrie seemingly moving closer to the exit door and into a meeting room with New York Knicks top hierarchy, Lakers could actually trade for Davis and keep the likes of Kuzma and Josh Hart.
A situation like that keeps Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka’s quest for an NBA title in check mainly due to the major possibility of adding a third “star” player without necessarily blowing up the financial sheet. There is a palpable feeling members of the stacked free agency class this offseason aren’t willing to play alongside LeBron. The top player in that class Kevin Durant pretty much spilled it out in an interview and used “toxic” to describe what playing alongside LeBron is like.
As such, top guys like Kawhi Leonard, Klay Thompson, Jimmy Butler and Khris Middleton are likely not to sign with the Lakers but elsewhere. Thompson is perfectly fine playing Robin to Steph Curry’s Batman, Middleton is fine alongside Giannis Antetokounmpo who doesn’t draw attention with a “Chosen 1” tattoo on his back in Milwaukee.
Butler wants max money and Philadelphia Sixers is the only team that could give him that plus Kyrie wants to run his team and the Lakers are LeBron’s team. As more drama spews in Boston and mercurial Guard Irving plots his departure from the Celtics, Lakers should get ready to check the major issue off its list of title winning requirement list. Without crossing players over or sinking a late three point shot, Kyrie Irving’s actions are invariably helping his former teammate LeBron and his team back to the top.
By Yaw Adjei-Mintah
@YawMintYM on Twitter
