Kyrie Irving to the Lakers? How Los Angeles can reunite LeBron James with his old sidekick

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Should the Lakers pursue Kyrie Irving? There are a number of compelling arguments against doing so that have nothing to do with his various off-court controversies. Their 2020 championship team was based on defense and depth around LeBron James and Anthony Davis. Rob Pelinka’s pursuit of star power eventually eroded those two pillars until the Lakers suddenly had Russell Westbrook and 10 minimum-salary free agents. As soon as the Lakers traded Westbrook for depth, they made it back to the Western Conference finals.

Of course, Irving isn’t Westbrook. He’s a proven fit with James, and while the Lakers wouldn’t exactly be deep around the pair of them, they’d have far more to work with than the 2021-22 team did. More importantly, James is two years older than he was when the Lakers landed Westbrook. Finding him another ball-handler was a luxury at that point. Now? It’s probably a necessity. As we covered during the playoffs, James simply isn’t capable of carrying the same pick-and-roll workload that he used to, and he barely ever isolates effectively anymore. James is still one of the NBA’s best players, but coming off of a foot injury that nearly ended his season, he was forced to adopt an entirely different shot diet to maintain any semblance of his old shot diet.

Whether it’s Irving or someone else, the Lakers need another reliable ball-handler. That’s why they traded for D’Angelo Russell in the first place. That experiment has seemingly failed, and now that James is considering retirement, the pressure is on for the Lakers. James has always expected his teams to go big-game hunting. Irving is the most obvious fit on the board.

So how could he become a Laker? Below, we’ll cover the two paths to Irving the Lakers feasibly have, and whether or not pursuing him is the right move going into next season.

Path 1: Cap space

Let’s make something clear from the start: the Lakers cannot generate max cap space under any circumstance. It simply is not an option. LeBron James and Anthony Davis are set to make nearly $87 million next season,…

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Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/kyrie-irving-to-the-lakers-how-los-angeles-can-reunite-lebron-james-with-his-old-sidekick/

Author : Sam Quinn

Publish date : 2023-05-24 19:19:11

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