There may be only an outside chance of Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving joining the Lakers, but with each passing day, it seems those chances are slowly getting better.
Reportedly, he and his team are at an impasse in terms of negotiating a contract extension. Irving has one year left on his current deal, and that final year is a player option.
The deadline for him to decide whether to opt into that final year is Wednesday.
Obviously, the Lakers pulling off an Irving trade would be very difficult, as trades for a star of that caliber always are, but perhaps there’s a slightly easier path to him becoming a member of the Purple and Gold.
Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN says that Irving has put together a list of teams he’d be interested in joining, and of those teams, the Lakers have the “most interest.”
Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) on teams interested in trading for Kyrie Irving: "Teams like Dallas, Sixers, Clippers have no interest in Kyrie. The Knicks' priority is Brunson. The one team that has real interest in him are the Lakers." pic.twitter.com/U4yr5z0fls
— Unbiased NBA Fan (@nonbiasednbafan) June 24, 2022
Wojnarowski also said there is no sign-and-trade deal with Brooklyn that would “make sense,” and that Irving’s best bet to become a Laker would be to opt out and sign for the team’s taxpayer mid-level exception, which is expected to be worth somewhere in the area of $6-$7 million.
If Irving were to do that, he could then sign a longer-term deal with L.A. next summer if the team were willing to do so.
