Los Angeles Lakers Not Likely To Acquire Kyrie Irving Through Sign-And-Trade: Report

In what may be a blessing in disguise, the Los Angeles Lakers aren’t likely to acquire Kyrie Irving through a sign-and-trade with the Dallas Mavericks.

According to the latest newsletter from NBA insider Marc Stein, the Mavericks have no interest in trading star point guard Kyrie Irving to the Lakers in a sign-and-trade deal that would also likely involve Los Angeles’ starting point guard, D’Angelo Russell.

While much of the Lakers’ rumored interest has been pure speculation and the fact that Irving and James have desired a reunion since their Cleveland Cavaliers days, Dallas doesn’t appear to have any interest even if Los Angeles does pursue Irving.

“A popular topic all week, in the wake of Denver sweeping the Lakers out of the Western Conference finals, was the notion that L.A. could emerge as a potential sign-and-trade destination for Dallas’ free agent-to-be Kyrie Irving,” writes Stein. “While we await a clear indication about the Lakers’ intentions there, with no verifiable signal to date that pursuing Irving is among their offseason priorities, league sources say that the Mavericks would have no interest in a sign-and-trade with the Lakers that features D’Angelo Russell as the primary Dallas-bound player. All indications are that the Mavericks remain intent on re-signing Irving.”

Since the Lakers’ season came to an end last week following a sweep by the Denver Nuggets, there’s been much talk surrounding what exactly Los Angeles plans to do in the offseason to upgrade the current roster. While some of that speculation is due to the surprising sweep at the hands of the Nuggets, it also has a lot to do with James’ postgame comments following the loss.

The 38-year-old superstar left open the idea of retirement after turning in one of the best playoff performances of his career — 40 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists — which is obviously an indirect message to management that they need to make some moves.

The Lakers will face their most pivotal offseason in years on the heels of one of the most surprising seasons in franchise history. While there’s a consensus belief that Los Angeles does need to re-sign key role players such as Austin Reaves and Rui Hachimura, there are questions on what further moves the Lakers need to accomplish in order to take that next leap.

One of the more popular proposals has been the idea of adding a third star in Irving, who has proven in the past he can excel with James.

While the idea of adding Irving to an injury-prone James/Anthony Davis duo sounds enticing on paper, the financials are extremely problematic and would put the Lakers in a similar cap-strapped situation that they were in during the Russell Westbrook era.

When the Lakers made the move for Westbrook during the summer of 2021, there were high expectations. The idea was that Westbrook would take the pressure off of James and Davis and would carry the team while either of those stars were out. That obviously didn’t work out, as the Lakers missed the playoffs during his lone full season in Los Angeles and the team went a collective 56-74 during his one-and-a-half seasons with the Lakers.

Outside of the awkward fit on the court due to Westbrook’s ball-hawking nature was his enormous cap hit. During the 2021-22 season, Westbrook was the highest-paid player on the Lakers’ roster ($44.2 million) along with James’ $41.2 million cap hit and Davis’ $35.4 million cap hit.

The contract continued to be a problem entering the 2022-23 season as his $47.1 million cap hit prevented Los Angeles from making any noteworthy moves during free agency.

The Lakers would face a similar predicament with Irving this summer.

While the fit would be better on the court, signing Irving would prevent the Lakers from surrounding James and Davis with the proper role players needed to win a championship.

Irving’s max contract would be for $46.9 million this season. Assuming he’s willing to take a bit of a discount, Los Angeles would still likely fall short of adding Irving due to being unable to create the necessary amount of cap space.

Assuming the Lakers bring back Reaves, Jarred Vanderbilt (at $4.7 million) and Max Christie ($1.7 million), Los Angeles would have a little more than $30 million in salary cap space to play with.

Assuming Irving takes that sort of deal, Los Angeles would feature a roster of James, Davis, Irving, Reaves, Vanderbilt, Christie and one $7.6 million mid-level exception along with a bunch of veterans and rookies on minimum deals.

Let’s not even tease the idea of going that route.

The idea of forming a “Big Three” and it automatically resulting in a title is a foolish idea. We saw what happened with this year’s Phoenix Suns with Kevin Durant, Chris Paul and Devin Booker. All it took was one injury to Paul to expose the Suns’ massive lack of depth due to featuring three stars on major money deals.

While the sign-and-trade scenario would obviously give the Lakers more options given they could create more salary cap space, it’s still a silly idea. Los Angeles should be more concerned with re-signing Reaves and Hachimura along with finding possible trade suitors for Russell in a sign-and-trade along with flipping the non-guaranteed deals of Malik Beasley ($16.5 million) and Mo Bamba ($10.3 million).

The Lakers certainly need to upgrade their roster if they want to win another championship while James is still playing. But going all-in on Irving is not the path needed in order to accomplish that goal.