Kyrie Trade Discussion Continued

[NyKnicks1714]

I'm sure this has been discussed already, but the worst part of Kyrie's trade demand is the fact that he waiting until now, as opposed to doing it before the draft when there was a far wider range of moves available. That's what makes this so selfish.

[turk3d]

Why would Memphis do this deal?

Cavs would be lucky to get just Gasol. Forget about Conley, plus they have Rose now which might actually be a better fit than Kyrie. What they need is a bonafide Center which they get in Gasol. Then trade Love for Carmelo. No need for Memphis to trade Conley. Memphis would need a replacement Center, however which is why I don't think they would do it. They'd have to play Conley and Kyrie in the backcourt with Kyrie playing the 2 (which would be even worse defense).

Gasol/Thompson
Lebron or Melo
Melo or Lebron
JR/Korver
Rose/Felder

This would be better for Cleveland however.

Rose is not the answer.

Bill Simmons said on his podcast that Kyrie and Love for Conely and Gasol could work.

I think that might be too much for Cleveland though.

I think that would be too much for Memphis. Why would they give up their all star Center and all star PG for Kyrie who they know wants to leave? Wishful thinking on some Cleveland fans part.

[Hello Brooklyn]

Kyrie isn't worried about Lebron leaving....he is worried about him staying !! He doesn't want to be in the same room as Lebron, and he is jealous of the special perks/attention and fawning Lebron receives. This is a selfish move by Kyrie and shows he cares more about himself and his "brand" than he does winning...why else would he list NY as one of the 4 places he wants to play !!

He grew up in the Brooklyn area so there's a strong possibility that he grew up a Knicks fan since Brooklyn didn't have a team till 2012.

Kyrie didn't grow up in Brooklyn, he grew up in New Jersey.

And he was a Nets fan, not a Knicks fan.

Kyrie Irving grew up a Nets fan, and remembers going to see them playing in an NBA Finals at Izod Center.

http://www.nj.com/nets/index.ssf/2012/01/kyrie_irving_off_to_a_strong_s.html

[Edrees]

dat poll result. Imagine this thread a week ago , you might get 0 votes for yes

[Coachcavplaya23]

I wouldn't be surprised if Kyrie never wanted to play with LeBron. He clearly has a massive ego and couldn't bear the thought of anyone taking the spotlight away from him on "his" team - even the greatest player of this generation.

For all the haters' narratives about how LeBron is selfish and a control freak, he bent over backwards to make it work with Kyrie. When he came back to Cleveland, he referred to the Cavs as "Kyrie's show." He allowed Kyrie to hold the ball longer than him, lead the team in shots and get almost as many touches as him despite being the significantly worse player. He even got Kyrie a ring! I think that's probably why LeBron is so angry at Kyrie. No matter how hard he tried to make it work, nothing short of being the only "star" in the locker room would ever be enough for Kyrie's ego.

You're not trying to make it work for anyone when you're unwilling to commit long term to that team in the first place. If Lebron leaves, Irving is hung out to dry with a roster full of Lebron's overpaid buddies, and I don't think Lebron gives a second thought to Kyrie should he bolt.

And Kyrie was committed? His camp was making noise about wanting out of Cleveland from the day he got there. He signed his post-rookie-contract extension strictly for the money, and he is already trying to force his way out of town with multiple years left on that deal.

It has nothing to do with LeBron's level of commitment, despite how hard the anti-LeBron crowd tries to spin it that way. It's about Kyrie and his ego. Not even winning a championship was enough to make Kyrie stop whining and pouting about his role on the team. That should tell you something.

I wonder what the anti-LeBron crowd will say if Kyrie gets to one of his preferred destinations and it dawns on him that he's still going to be the sidekick to Kawhi/Towns/Porzingis/Whiteside. I guess they'll just drop the subject and pretend that Kyrie doesn't exist, since he'll no longer be useful for their agenda.

You really want to talk about whining. Even having the highest payroll in the league for 3 years, making trade after trade to get more help, and signing Tristan and JR to awful contracts, Lebron doesnt stop whining about something depsite the franchise bending over backwards to cater to his every desire. You want to talk about Kryie whining but Lebron has been much worse.

[Bobalob]

...Kyrie has a lot of childhood connections to Boston too.

This comment is funny bc it reads as if Kyrie has any choice. He aint a free agent my G

I hope he has some connections in Utah

Your right, he has no choice but if he's traded next year(if LeBron leaves) it could be for as many assets as Cleveland could get to rebuild, meaning he'll go to a horrible team. If he's traded this year they'll want a package to be good enough to help them get back to the finals. It's all about Cleveland with and without LeBron. If Cleveland is trading Irving they shouldn't care where he goes, just get the best return. Kyrie being traded now just stops some teams like for instance... Orlando, Brooklyn, Dallas and Chicago because they don't have a piece to help Cleveland now. Phoenix is interesting because of it's assets and Bledsoe would help them now. They talked to Chicago before Butler was traded because Butler would help them.

Check out my comment above. You're right that Cleveland is PROBABLYgonna want 'win now' players, but dont be suprised if they 100% cover their ass and go for youth and high quality picks.

Not only bc Bron culd leave, but bc they're good enough to reach the finals anyway lol Not only without Kyrie but without replacing him at ALL lol

Lebron is THAT good. Love could easily up his scoring to 22-24 a game, Rose chip in 12-15 or so. JR-Shump-Korver do what they do...guys lets not forget how good Lebron is and how good he makes players.

Would it be good for Lebron long term to carry that load? Of course not. But Cleveland probably shouldnt care about whats god for Lebron long term.

But i do agree that looking at all the rosters, Phoenix keeps jumping out to me as the ideal team bc of youth + Bledsoe (but if i were Dan Gilbert i'd take Jackson and Chriss as opposed to Jackson and Bledsoe)

[mademan]

And Kyrie was committed? His camp was making noise about wanting out of Cleveland from the day he got there. He signed his post-rookie-contract extension strictly for the money, and he is already trying to force his way out of town with multiple years left on that deal.

It has nothing to do with LeBron's level of commitment, despite how hard the anti-LeBron crowd tries to spin it that way. It's about Kyrie and his ego. Not even winning a championship was enough to make Kyrie stop whining and pouting about his role on the team. That should tell you something.

I wonder what the anti-LeBron crowd will say if Kyrie gets to one of his preferred destinations and it dawns on him that he's still going to be the sidekick to Kawhi/Towns/Porzingis/Whiteside. I guess they'll just drop the subject and pretend that Kyrie doesn't exist, since he'll no longer be useful for their agenda.

Kyrie signed a 5 year 90 million dollar extension. I'd say that that, in and of itself, shows a willingness to work through any problems he may have had at that period of time.

If you're a player, and you've got a guy who pulls the strings with management, has tapped out any money that team can spend on middling players, and he won't give you a long term commitment and could bolt at any time, wouldn't you want to leave too?

This comes down to one simple fact. If Lebron leaves, Kyrie is absolutely ****. This is completely separate of whether Kyrie is good enough or not to be "the man" on a team (which I don't think he is). This has more to do with foresight than anything else imo. Cleveland is a trainwreck waiting to happen at this point. 67 million sunk into Love/Thompson/Smith/Shumpert 18-19 and 60 sunk into Love/Thompson/Smith the following year. If Love leaves they take a step back, if he doesn't there's limited flexibility. That's not a good situation.

All it showed was that he had a commitment to getting paid. The Lebron excuse is a convenient one and it may even possibly be true, but let's be clear, kyrie has had problems with Cleveland years before Lebron even came back

[Bobalob]

Best trade scenario for Cleveland : To Philly for Markelle Fultz, Jared Bayless, Dario Saric and a pick

Best trade for Lebron: 3 way deal netting Eric Bledsoe, Tyson Chandler, and Melo

Best trade for Kyrie: To Minnesota for Andrew Wiggins

[AirP.]

Check out my comment above. You're right that Cleveland is PROBABLYgonna want 'win now' players, but dont be suprised if they 100% cover their ass and go for youth and high quality picks.

Not only bc Bron culd leave, but bc they're good enough to reach the finals anyway lol Not only without Kyrie but without replacing him at ALL lol

Lebron is THAT good. Love could easily up his scoring to 22-24 a game, Rose chip in 12-15 or so. JR-Shump-Korver do what they do...guys lets not forget how good Lebron is and how good he makes players.

Would it be good for Lebron long term to carry that load? Of course not. But Cleveland probably shouldnt care about whats god for Lebron long term.

But i do agree that looking at all the rosters, Phoenix keeps jumping out to me as the ideal team bc of youth + Bledsoe (but if i were Dan Gilbert i'd take Jackson and Chriss as opposed to Jackson and Bledsoe)

Rose who is a solid scoring PG does hurt a teams spacing, when LeBron is on the court with the ball in his hands teams will cheat to give LeBron less space and in hopes of Rose getting and taking an outside shot. If you want to win with Rose(and he's not as good as he use to be) you have to cator to him(like the Bulls did early in his career) and he's just too old to start doing that as a team.

No Cleveland shouldn't worry about LeBron long term because he may not be there after next season. If they have any thought that he may be gone they have to go for it NOW. Who knows how long it will be in the future for Cleveland to have as good of a shot at a title as they will next year with LeBron.

The reason you take Bledsoe is because you want to up your chances of winning a title in possibly the last season of LeBron in Cleveland. Personally I think you go all out in that situation and try to bring a 2nd title to Cleveland instead of making your life after LeBron just a little better.

Also keep this in mind with Cleveland, at some point the Bulls will buy out D.Wade to save some money. Wade to Cleveland isn't out of the question, then again he could go back to Miami or he may also go to Minnesota to back up with Butler for 1/2 a season.

[flintsky21]

If Kyrie wanted to be THE guy, wouldn't have he just waited one more year since Lebron will be bolting anyway and Kyrie will then be the clear alpha once again? Wouldn't it be worth giving this team at least one more run at the title? Love or hate Lebron, there's a reason he's been in the finals for 7 straight years. I love Kyrie, but he's got a weird way of looking at things.

[Bobalob]

Check out my comment above. You're right that Cleveland is PROBABLYgonna want 'win now' players, but dont be suprised if they 100% cover their ass and go for youth and high quality picks.

Not only bc Bron culd leave, but bc they're good enough to reach the finals anyway lol Not only without Kyrie but without replacing him at ALL lol

Lebron is THAT good. Love could easily up his scoring to 22-24 a game, Rose chip in 12-15 or so. JR-Shump-Korver do what they do...guys lets not forget how good Lebron is and how good he makes players.

Would it be good for Lebron long term to carry that load? Of course not. But Cleveland probably shouldnt care about whats god for Lebron long term.

But i do agree that looking at all the rosters, Phoenix keeps jumping out to me as the ideal team bc of youth + Bledsoe (but if i were Dan Gilbert i'd take Jackson and Chriss as opposed to Jackson and Bledsoe)

Rose who is a solid scoring PG does hurt a teams spacing, when LeBron is on the court with the ball in his hands teams will cheat to give LeBron less space and in hopes of Rose getting and taking an outside shot. If you want to win with Rose(and he's not as good as he use to be) you have to cator to him(like the Bulls did early in his career) and he's just too old to start doing that as a team.

No Cleveland shouldn't worry about LeBron long term because he may not be there after next season. If they have any thought that he may be gone they have to go for it NOW. Who knows how long it will be in the future for Cleveland to have as good of a shot at a title as they will next year with LeBron.

The reason you take Bledsoe is because you want to up your chances of winning a title in possibly the last season of LeBron in Cleveland. Personally I think you go all out in that situation and try to bring a 2nd title to Cleveland instead of making your life after LeBron just a little better.

Also keep this in mind with Cleveland, at some point the Bulls will buy out D.Wade to save some money. Wade to Cleveland isn't out of the question, then again he could go back to Miami or he may also go to Minnesota to back up with Butler for 1/2 a season.

This is the thinking of you and I and any logical competitive person, but Gilbert is not logical lmao Thats why this whole situation is strange.

Kyrie and Gilbert seem to be on some 'well we aint winning anyway so let me set myself up for life after he leave'

And i cant 100% blame Gilbert (i do blame Kyrie bc he's a baller, he shouldn't think like that)

Let me give a tangible example, say it came down to two offers: One offer is Fultz and Saric, the other is Bledsoe and Melo. Clearly Bledsoe and Melo give you a better chance to win now...

If im Gilbert, im taking Fultz and Saric!

[ReginaldDwight]

Kyrie isn't worried about Lebron leaving....he is worried about him staying !! He doesn't want to be in the same room as Lebron, and he is jealous of the special perks/attention and fawning Lebron receives. This is a selfish move by Kyrie and shows he cares more about himself and his "brand" than he does winning...why else would he list NY as one of the 4 places he wants to play !!

Its the nearest nba team to where he grew up?

[DaGawd]

Read on Twitter

Vegas know something we don't?

[andrewww]

100% worth it. And if you want to believe last year was gifted to the Cavs by the league that's fine. I won't have that argument. But if Kyrie/Love aren't hurt in 2015 I think the Cavs win so either way I believe the even split was the basketball Gods getting it right.

IMO LeBron is the greatest basketball player of all time. Throw resumes out the window, I think LeBron James can impact more areas of a game than anyone else ever has. I don't know if we'll ever see another player lead all 5 major statistical categories for an entire 7 game Finals series ever again like he did in 2016. But his stubbornness and need to control everything is a lot of baggage that ultimately will hurt the franchise in the end (hopefully after a couple chips tho )

He may be the best all around player ever and floor raiser.

Impact? I look at impact as contributing in categories that include winning, and to me Lebron just isnt nearly great enough at raising the ceiling for title contenders. He's closer to losing 7 out of 8 Finals appearances than he is to being .500. But this is a discussion to be had outside of this thread.

You can be a swiss army knife, but if a player is close to him as a swiss army knife but is infinitely better at one of the most important categories (scoring) when it matters time and time again which leads to a title (that's what you play for), I think its MJ and its not even close imo.

[RCM88x]

Read on Twitter

Vegas know something we don't?

Yea, that there are a lot of Knick's fans in Vegas who have cash to burn.

[AirP.]

This is the thinking of you and I and any logical competitive person, but Gilbert is not logical lmao Thats why this whole situation is strange.

Kyrie and Gilbert seem to be on some 'well we aint winning anyway so let me set myself up for life after he leave'

And i cant 100% blame Gilbert (i do blame Kyrie bc he's a baller, he shouldn't think like that)

Let me give a tangible example, say it came down to two offers: One offer is Fultz and Saric, the other is Bledsoe and Melo. Clearly Bledsoe and Melo give you a better chance to win now...

If im Gilbert, im taking Fultz and Saric!

I get trying to keep the quality of the roster up as much as possible when LeBron leaves, but doing that makes it for sure that LeBron will leave and the fan base will blame the FO not LeBron for that and there will be a lot of backlash.

This is a big part of what you get with LeBron, you have to cator to him or he leaves, Gilbert had to know that and has went deep into the luxury tax to do what LeBron wants. I'm not quite sure he's ready to just hit eject with LeBron yet. Also, there is no upside for LeBron to let Gilbert know he's leaving, he has to keep stringing him along to keep Gilbert putting out the best team he can around LeBron. LeBron is high maintenance but he's good enough to be that way(not that I like players having that much power).

[Coachcavplaya23]

Check out my comment above. You're right that Cleveland is PROBABLYgonna want 'win now' players, but dont be suprised if they 100% cover their ass and go for youth and high quality picks.

Not only bc Bron culd leave, but bc they're good enough to reach the finals anyway lol Not only without Kyrie but without replacing him at ALL lol

Lebron is THAT good. Love could easily up his scoring to 22-24 a game, Rose chip in 12-15 or so. JR-Shump-Korver do what they do...guys lets not forget how good Lebron is and how good he makes players.

Would it be good for Lebron long term to carry that load? Of course not. But Cleveland probably shouldnt care about whats god for Lebron long term.

But i do agree that looking at all the rosters, Phoenix keeps jumping out to me as the ideal team bc of youth + Bledsoe (but if i were Dan Gilbert i'd take Jackson and Chriss as opposed to Jackson and Bledsoe)

Rose who is a solid scoring PG does hurt a teams spacing, when LeBron is on the court with the ball in his hands teams will cheat to give LeBron less space and in hopes of Rose getting and taking an outside shot. If you want to win with Rose(and he's not as good as he use to be) you have to cator to him(like the Bulls did early in his career) and he's just too old to start doing that as a team.

No Cleveland shouldn't worry about LeBron long term because he may not be there after next season. If they have any thought that he may be gone they have to go for it NOW. Who knows how long it will be in the future for Cleveland to have as good of a shot at a title as they will next year with LeBron.

The reason you take Bledsoe is because you want to up your chances of winning a title in possibly the last season of LeBron in Cleveland. Personally I think you go all out in that situation and try to bring a 2nd title to Cleveland instead of making your life after LeBron just a little better.

Also keep this in mind with Cleveland, at some point the Bulls will buy out D.Wade to save some money. Wade to Cleveland isn't out of the question, then again he could go back to Miami or he may also go to Minnesota to back up with Butler for 1/2 a season.

They have to look at it if Kryie and Lebron cant beat GS how can Bledsoe and Lebron? Wade isnt moving the needle either. If Lebron does leave, we are stuck with no assets, no young players that can become stars and now you have Bledsoe for 15 mil. If the Cavs can get Jackson then great but just for Bledsoe probably not. The Cavs still have to compete against the Warriors in the Finals with essentially a slightly worse team. The bench didn't improve at all so you cannot count on them to show up again.

It may not be the popular thing to do or the easiest but to transition into a rebuild may be the best thing for the franchise right now. They can still compete next year and it would be great for the young guys as well.

[Profound23]

Read on Twitter

Vegas know something we don't?

Yea, that there are a lot of Knick's fans in Vegas who have cash to burn.

What's to stop Irving from having all his friends place a bet on the team he is going to before it is public knowledge?

Place a 20mil bet on the Bucks or Hawks once he knows it's done through a "friend."

[Bobalob]

This is the thinking of you and I and any logical competitive person, but Gilbert is not logical lmao Thats why this whole situation is strange.

Kyrie and Gilbert seem to be on some 'well we aint winning anyway so let me set myself up for life after he leave'

And i cant 100% blame Gilbert (i do blame Kyrie bc he's a baller, he shouldn't think like that)

Let me give a tangible example, say it came down to two offers: One offer is Fultz and Saric, the other is Bledsoe and Melo. Clearly Bledsoe and Melo give you a better chance to win now...

If im Gilbert, im taking Fultz and Saric!

I get trying to keep the quality of the roster up as much as possible when LeBron leaves, but doing that makes it for sure that LeBron will leave and the fan base will blame the FO not LeBron for that and there will be a lot of backlash.

This is a big part of what you get with LeBron, you have to cator to him or he leaves, Gilbert had to know that and has went deep into the luxury tax to do what LeBron wants. I'm not quite sure he's ready to just hit eject with LeBron yet. Also, there is no upside for LeBron to let Gilbert know he's leaving, he has to keep stringing him along to keep Gilbert putting out the best team he can around LeBron. LeBron is high maintenance but he's good enough to be that way(not that I like players having that much power).

In the chess game of dealing with Lebron, if im Gilbert i'd already assume thats already happening.

I'd much rather deal with a little backlash but put out a promising product for the future rather than appease them for ONE year and be left holdin my ...

And one thing we know about fans is they LOVE, LOVE the unknown, un-exposed player, ie backup QBs and lottery picks. (Just check this site and how some people WOULDNT trade their new picks for Kyrie. 1 guy said he woudlnt trade Frank Ntilikina for Kyire!!!)

If the Cavs net Markelle Fultz or Dearon Fox Cavs fans would not be mad (and again with naother vet added in there the Cavs would reach the finals anyway)

[Bobalob]

Cuban is a known star-lover. How about Kyrie and Shump for Dennis Smith and Harrison Barnes