Each week during the 2023-24 NBA season, we will delve deeper into some of the league’s most significant events to assess whether the patterns are more factual or fiction in the future.
[Last week: How to Improve the NBA’s In-season Tournament.]
This week’s topic: Kyrie Irving trade rumors cannot cease.
On Friday, around 80 players, or 20% of the NBA’s roster, were eligible for trade. Most everyone who signed a free-agent contract this summer, with the exception of those who signed after September 15 and a few additional exceptions, can be traded as of the unofficial start of a trade season that goes until February 8.
Most of the names will not pique your interest, but their salaries may now be packaged to pursue more famous players on the market, such as Zach LaVine, Pascal Siakam, and (for an astronomical fee) Lauri Markkanen.
Keep in mind that no trades were completed in December, and only two in January: a salary dump of a minimum contract and the Los Angeles Lakers’ purchase of Rui Hachimura. It wasn’t until Kyrie Irving requested a trade from the Brooklyn Nets the week before the deadline that things got heated.
Surprisingly, Irving is the most well-known of the 81 players who have lately become eligible for trade, along with Russell Westbrook, Khris Middleton, Fred VanVleet, and Draymond Green.
Irving may also be the most likely of the group to be traded, if only because his wishes float on the breeze. He requested a trade from LeBron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers a month after reaching the NBA Finals for the third time in a row, seeking leadership of his own contender; he vowed to re-sign with the Boston Celtics but instead followed good friend Kevin Durant to the Brooklyn Nets; and he forewent that happy homecoming in favor of rejoining James on the Los Angeles Lakers. All of this occurred over the course of six years.During that time, Irving also missed 30% of his games with the Celtics, 50% of his games with the Nets, and 30% (and counting) of his games with the Dallas Mavericks due to injuries, an anti-vaccination campaign, and his suspension for promoting an antisemitic film on social media.
It’s tough to say which has been more upsetting for his teams over the years: excusable injuries or purposeful subversion. Knee surgery prevented him from playing in the 2018 Eastern Conference finals, and he left the Celtics in the second round of the 2019 playoffs. On the Nets, he opted out of the 2020 draft and resisted New York’s vaccine mandate throughout the 2021-22 season, prompting James Harden’s departure, before the roster completely imploded in February. In between, a sprained ankle forced him to miss an overtime Game 7 loss in the second round of the 2021 playoffs. That brings us to February, when he joined the sixth-place Mavericks, only to miss the playoffs due to a chronic right foot issue.
(When you lay it all out, that is quite the accomplishment for a potential Hall of Fame player.)
None of this prevented Irving from re-signing with Dallas over the summer on a three-year, $120 million contract, which became tradeable on Friday. Notably, it was not the four-year, $200 million maximum contract he desired.
