When Kyrie Irving went to the Cleveland Cavaliers and demanded a trade last summer, it was widely reported that he no longer wanted to play with LeBron James. While that may have been true, it appears there were other important factors that have not received as much attention.
ESPN’s Dave McMenamin touched on one of them in a feature published on Thursday about some of the questions lingering with the Cavs franchise. In it, McMenamin reported that members of Cleveland’s front office met on the day of the NBA Draft back in June to discuss the possibility of trading Irving. That was before Irving demanded to be dealt, and the conversation apparently got back to him and served as the “tipping point” in the star point guard wanting to move on.
Here’s more:
The discussion, characterized as “small talk” by one source familiar with its content, was less a formal straw poll of what the Cavs should do with their All-Star point guard should trade opportunities present themselves, and more of a thought exercise anticipating what the market could bear for a player of Irving’s caliber.
The talk got back to Irving, multiple team sources told ESPN, and that served as the tipping point that led to Irving formally requesting a trade a little more than two weeks later.
“It was sloppy,” one league source familiar with the draft-day discussion told ESPN, adding that any talk about trading a player of Irving’s ilk — however informal it might be — should be handled strictly between the GM and owner, because of the sensitive nature of its content. Once a player feels expendable or undervalued from his own team, getting him to buy back in is a prickly proposition.
Irving hinted at some of that in a candid interview with ESPN’s Jackie MacMullan last month, when he said the truth about why he forced his way out of Cleveland has been “distorted.” MacMullan also reported that the Cavs were engaged in trade discussions for Irving in the days after former general manager David Griffin was fired, which was right around the time of the draft.
Again, it’s possible that Irving wanted to get away from LeBron. However, the context helps us get a better idea of why things got as ugly as they supposedly did just before Irving was traded to the Celtics. While the Cavs want everyone to think their former No. 1 overall pick suddenly decided he doesn’t want to be part of the team anymore, there is clearly more to the story than that.
