Kyrie Irving continues to make the news for everything except his skills on the basketball court. This time, the controversial All-Star has stolen all the headlines for his alleged desire to leave the Brooklyn Nets.
The Nets didn't want to commit to him and sign him to a long-term extension after all his availability issues, and Irving took offense to that.
Now, the Nets have reportedly opened up the door for him to seek a trade and leave. However, that could be the first domino to fall for a franchise looking to compete at the highest level, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN:
“This is getting acrimonious,” Woj said. “And I think that’s the concern when you look at not only Kyrie’s future in Brooklyn, but also Kevin Durant’s future and whether they can hold this thing together.”
Woj added that the Lakers showed interest in reuniting Kyrie with LeBron James. Nonetheless, money could certainly be an issue for the controversial star:
“The interest isn’t mutual in several of these places,” Woj added. “Obviously the Lakers are the ones that loom. And will Kyrie Irving walk away from a $36.9 million player option that he can opt into and have that money guaranteed, especially after a year where he lost about $17 million by not being vaccinated last year and untold more with a sneaker deal that isn’t going to be there anymore, certainly at the level it was.”
More than that, Kyrie's departure could also mean that Kevin Durant will look to take his talents elsewhere. According to NBA insider Logan Murdock, he hasn't even reached out to the team in weeks:
"Kevin Durant has not talked to the team in weeks, and I don't think Kevin is confident in the front office right now. I don't know if he's at the stage of leaving, but there's a big uneasiness not only from the Kyrie side but from the KD side as well," Murdock said.
Durant is reportedly angry at the fact that the Nets didn't make an effort to understand Kyrie, once again siding with him in this complicated scenario.
“I think that his biggest beef is that he didn’t feel like the Nets front office grew to try to understand Kyrie," Murdock added. "And I would push back and say when a guy leaves for two weeks at a time, Kyrie earns the lion’s share of the blame. But I think that Kevin feels like, ‘Hey man, when you guys didn’t try to understand this guy, you guys didn’t figure out where he was coming from.”
People have already questioned Durant's decision to leave Golden State to team up with a player who's rarely seen on the court, so one can only wonder what they will say if this comes to fruition.
