Kyrie Irving has no time for normalcy. No space for quiet. For someone who speaks and posts about the value of mindfulness, among so, so many other things, he refuses to ever be still. And so the story with Kyrie is always the same—only louder with each passing cycle. He impresses, then agitates, then wears out his welcome. Teams excuse his behavior up until they wonder how it all went wrong. The Brooklyn Nets passed the breaking point with Irving months ago, if not years. Yet for good measure, the talented point guard spent a few months pretending to be a somewhat professional basketball player, helping the Nets rebound from the disastrous start to their season up until the point when, on Friday, he upended that progress by requesting a trade.
Irving, who is now 30, reportedly wanted a long-term commitment, which Brooklyn—even after doing more to clean up Kyrie’s various messes than any organization should—understandably declined to oblige. Not three weeks ago, Irving explained the difference between this season’s Nets and last season’s Nets, which imploded around the trade deadline, by pointing out that no one in the current locker room was “halfway in.” Evidently he was right. There is a roster of players trying in earnest to compete for something, and there is a star who helped engineer their circumstances now squarely, firmly out, with nothing halfway about it. According to Chris Haynes of Turner Sports, the situation is now so disagreeable that Irving wouldn’t stay in Brooklyn even if he were offered a max contract.
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Using the pressure of the deadline to force some kind of action—an extension, a trade, or both—isn’t a bad play for a star looking to change his circumstances. Sometimes you have to make a fuss. Yet Irving does so many things to demand the attention of his franchise that, in moments like this one, he makes it harder to actually get what he wants. If he’s truly not interested in staying with Brooklyn, he’s attempting to force his way onto the trade market with the very kind of behavior that discourages teams from trading for him in the first place.
Irving has effectively issued a desperation check for the entire league. Which franchises are so short on options that they would trade for a star who has bailed on every team he’s ever played for, undermined coaches, hung his teammates out to dry, and—lest we forget—mired his entire organization in controversy after he not only shared an antisemitic film on social media this very season, but steadfastly defended his decision to do so to the point that the Nets suspended him? Irving is such a fringe case of NBA stardom that any team interested in him can’t even assume that he’ll consistently show up to work. And the same is true for Brooklyn; while some stars will try to force their way out by hiding behind empty threats, the Nets know all too well that if Irving doesn’t feel like participating, he won’t. What’s another bridge to burn?
Fortunately for the Nets, there is no shortage of anxiety at this stage in the season. The Lakers are the natural fit for Irving, considering that the high point of his career came alongside LeBron James, and the NBA’s glitziest franchise doesn’t have any other realistic path to a star. The Mavericks could get in the running to set up Luka Doncic with a proper running mate, albeit one prone to demolition. Are the Heat, stuck in the thick of the Eastern Conference standings, desperate enough to consider it? Are the Clippers? Almost a week remains until the trade deadline, and already we’ve had several waves of reported suitors—including the Suns, which unlike many of the other teams noted above, could send back enough good, viable present-tense NBA players to keep the Nets solvent this season.
That could wind up being a huge factor in the Irving trade saga, and thus a deciding factor in another, more monumental trade saga. If the Nets lose their second-best player without getting anything even resembling a star in return, why would Kevin Durant—who issued his own trade request back in September—want to stick around? Brooklyn has gone 26-13 with Durant in the lineup this season, but has a tendency to implode without him. This could be the beginning of the end—again—of the Nets as we know them, and a shake-up for the rest of the league in the process. Irving could make a good team better. Durant, if he were to be moved, would tilt the entire title race.
All of that depends on the needs and anxieties of the teams that could, in spite of everything, actually talk themselves into trading for Irving. Some of those organizations would surely rather wait and sign Kyrie outright once he hits free agency this summer without having to give up quality players or draft capital. A team carried by a 38-year-old living legend with precious few playoff runs left, however, could be significantly more motivated to make a deal as soon as possible. We knew that Irving’s availability had LeBron’s curiosity, but now it has his attention. And why wouldn’t it? Kyrie is unquestionably a lot, but it’s easy to gloss over the way he drags down entire franchises when the best guard in uniform is Dennis Schröder.
It’s not just the Lakers who are desperate for roster improvement, but LeBron. And it’s not just the Mavericks who are desperate to take the next step, but Luka—and so on and so forth, with virtually every suitor on the board. It’s fitting that Irving’s next team could be decided by which star applies the most pressure, by way of the kind of political capital that Kyrie had and squandered. There is a currency in being a player who still shows up, night after night, when things aren’t easy. The kind of creator who finds a way. The Nets invested in Irving as if he were one of them, a peer to James and Doncic and Durant rather than an accessory. All Brooklyn has to show for it now is a single playoff series win in three-plus seasons, and one final demand to accommodate.
