Cavaliers Seeking Blue Chip Young Player For Kyrie Irving

[RealGM Wiretap]

Following Kyrie Irving's trade request of the Cleveland Cavaliers, there is little chance of salvaging the relationship, according to sources.

Irving no longer wants to play with LeBron James and wants to carve out the next stage of his career despite being two seasons away from free agency.

Cleveland's highest priority is trading for Irving for a blue-chip young player. The Cavaliers want to remain title contenders next season while protecting themselves if James leaves in 2018.

The Cavaliers have taken note of how the Phoenix Suns traded Goran Dragic to the Miami Heat for two future first round picks instead of the relatively paltry compensation Paul George, Jimmy Butler and DeMarcus Cousins fetched.

Via Zach Lowe/ESPN

[Sam195]

Garry Harris & Mudiay

[timstrasser]

As a 76ers fan, I could see, and I guess accept, a Fultz-Okafor-Future 1st for Kyrie Irving, but I wouldn't be super excited because of Fultz's unknown potential. That said, I think the most likely team to trade for Irving is the Knicks. I predict the Knicks receive: Irving, JR Smith. Cavs receive: Carmelo Anthony, Frank Ntilikina, Mindaugas Kuzminskas (and his $3 mil non-guaranteed 1-year contract) and the 2018 1st, unprotected.

[USER0023942]

[donaldtrump_00]

As a 76ers fan, I could see, and I guess accept, a Fultz-Okafor-Future 1st for Kyrie Irving, but I wouldn't be super excited because of Fultz's unknown potential. That said, I think the most likely team to trade for Irving is the Knicks. I predict the Knicks receive: Irving, JR Smith. Cavs receive: Carmelo Anthony, Frank Ntilikina, Mindaugas Kuzminskas (and his $3 mil non-guaranteed 1-year contract) and the 2018 1st, unprotected.

bulls have to be all over this. LeBron and d.wade with love. only thing kris dunn is untouchable. chi has the first round picks to make it worth while. they can have the sacremento pick as well. kyrie can put up 30 ppg on chi if that's what hes asking for. he would have lavine and markkanen to play with. lopez alsoand tons of cap space next year to get in the playoffs hunt. I don't mind cleaning house to bring kyrie in chi where he belongs. butler can opt out in two years. the team would be so good by then.

[madmaxmedia]

It seems like Kyrie is really doing the Cavs a favor by announcing desire now rather than in a year. He should have good solid trade value now

[foreigngrammar]

As a 76ers fan, I could see, and I guess accept, a Fultz-Okafor-Future 1st for Kyrie Irving, but I wouldn't be super excited because of Fultz's unknown potential. That said, I think the most likely team to trade for Irving is the Knicks. I predict the Knicks receive: Irving, JR Smith. Cavs receive: Carmelo Anthony, Frank Ntilikina, Mindaugas Kuzminskas (and his $3 mil non-guaranteed 1-year contract) and the 2018 1st, unprotected.

bulls have to be all over this. LeBron and d.wade with love. only thing kris dunn is untouchable. chi has the first round picks to make it worth while. they can have the sacremento pick as well. kyrie can put up 30 ppg on chi if that's what hes asking for. he would have lavine and markkanen to play with. lopez alsoand tons of cap space next year to get in the playoffs hunt. I don't mind cleaning house to bring kyrie in chi where he belongs. butler can opt out in two years. the team would be so good by then.

Yeah... DONALD!
What?

[Rek]

As a 76ers fan, I could see, and I guess accept, a Fultz-Okafor-Future 1st for Kyrie Irving, but I wouldn't be super excited because of Fultz's unknown potential. That said, I think the most likely team to trade for Irving is the Knicks. I predict the Knicks receive: Irving, JR Smith. Cavs receive: Carmelo Anthony, Frank Ntilikina, Mindaugas Kuzminskas (and his $3 mil non-guaranteed 1-year contract) and the 2018 1st, unprotected.

I think Philly is one of the best landing spots for Kyrie. However, not sure how he would feel about sharing primary ball handling duties with Simmons. To be honest, though. I don't think KI is all that worried about being the only focal point of an offense. I think it has more to do with Bron constantly holding the entire franchise hostage and then inevitably bolting for greener pastures and leaving everyone else to deal with the garbage contracts he forced upon them.

Philly would be quite good if they added Kyrie to their roster, imo. Has to be considered.

[CEOSports]

Garry Harris & Mudiay

I like this a lot. I think Denver has more than enough to offer the Cavs

[Rek]

only thing kris dunn is untouchable.

[broseph13]

Garry Harris & Mudiay

Are you kidding me? Mudiay is an awful NBA player. Cavs should and would reject that offer in a hot minute.

[Pedro]

I still feel the Suns are a great option. They can offer a young budding player like Chriss or Bender, a vet like Bledsoe or Knight, and drafts picks all without sacrificing their young core of excessive future picks. I think it could be fun to see Lebron play with mini-Lebron (Bledsoe).

[Scalabrine]

As a 76ers fan, I could see, and I guess accept, a Fultz-Okafor-Future 1st for Kyrie Irving, but I wouldn't be super excited because of Fultz's unknown potential. That said, I think the most likely team to trade for Irving is the Knicks. I predict the Knicks receive: Irving, JR Smith. Cavs receive: Carmelo Anthony, Frank Ntilikina, Mindaugas Kuzminskas (and his $3 mil non-guaranteed 1-year contract) and the 2018 1st, unprotected.

I'd imagine the Knicks won't be giving away any unprotected picks any time soon and I don't think we'd be interested in taking Smith back either.

Melo, Ntilikina and a lottery protected 1st for Irving and Shumpert.

I'm totally fine not making that trade and sticking with building through the draft though.

[Scalabrine]

As a 76ers fan, I could see, and I guess accept, a Fultz-Okafor-Future 1st for Kyrie Irving, but I wouldn't be super excited because of Fultz's unknown potential. That said, I think the most likely team to trade for Irving is the Knicks. I predict the Knicks receive: Irving, JR Smith. Cavs receive: Carmelo Anthony, Frank Ntilikina, Mindaugas Kuzminskas (and his $3 mil non-guaranteed 1-year contract) and the 2018 1st, unprotected.

I think Philly is one of the best landing spots for Kyrie. However, not sure how he would feel about sharing primary ball handling duties with Simmons. To be honest, though. I don't think KI is all that worried about being the only focal point of an offense. I think it has more to do with Bron constantly holding the entire franchise hostage and then inevitably bolting for greener pastures and leaving everyone else to deal with the garbage contracts he forced upon them.

Philly would be quite good if they added Kyrie to their roster, imo. Has to be considered.

Sure he left for greener pastures and left them with crap contracts but 1) he got them to the finals 4 times (likely 5 after this year) and 2) Irving has never been apart of that.

[timstrasser]

As a 76ers fan, I could see, and I guess accept, a Fultz-Okafor-Future 1st for Kyrie Irving, but I wouldn't be super excited because of Fultz's unknown potential. That said, I think the most likely team to trade for Irving is the Knicks. I predict the Knicks receive: Irving, JR Smith. Cavs receive: Carmelo Anthony, Frank Ntilikina, Mindaugas Kuzminskas (and his $3 mil non-guaranteed 1-year contract) and the 2018 1st, unprotected.

I'd imagine the Knicks won't be giving away any unprotected picks any time soon and I don't think we'd be interested in taking Smith back either.

Melo, Ntilikina and a lottery protected 1st for Irving and Shumpert.

I'm totally fine not making that trade and sticking with building through the draft though.

My reasoning with the Knicks' side is they are trying to basically get anything to move on from Anthony and all GMs know this. Second, Anthony is 33, has a few more good years left while Irving is 25 and have plenty of prime years left. To make this work, NYK would have to take on JR Smith's awful contract, give up the really unknown French PG Ntilikina, Kuzminskas for salary purposes and their unprotected 2018 1st. This leaves the Knicks with a verified star PG to team with Porzingis, with Hardaway at SG - by the way, Hardaway is not a bad player; he had a better year than Caldwell-Pope did and nobody is screaming about Pope's contract. This will make the Knicks an attractive team for a free agent SF next year.
On the Cavs' side, they get Anthony to team with LBJ for the final three-four years of their primes. He'd play PF, meaning they'd look to trade Love. They shed a bad contract for the trouble and get a high potential rookie PG in Ntilikina.
Seems fair on both sides.

[Hoopzilla]

As a 76ers fan, I could see, and I guess accept, a Fultz-Okafor-Future 1st for Kyrie Irving, but I wouldn't be super excited because of Fultz's unknown potential. That said, I think the most likely team to trade for Irving is the Knicks. I predict the Knicks receive: Irving, JR Smith. Cavs receive: Carmelo Anthony, Frank Ntilikina, Mindaugas Kuzminskas (and his $3 mil non-guaranteed 1-year contract) and the 2018 1st, unprotected.

I think Philly is one of the best landing spots for Kyrie. However, not sure how he would feel about sharing primary ball handling duties with Simmons. To be honest, though. I don't think KI is all that worried about being the only focal point of an offense. I think it has more to do with Bron constantly holding the entire franchise hostage and then inevitably bolting for greener pastures and leaving everyone else to deal with the garbage contracts he forced upon them.

Philly would be quite good if they added Kyrie to their roster, imo. Has to be considered.

Sure he left for greener pastures and left them with crap contracts

That is the only relevant part of your quote, the rest is just justification and posturing. He left them for dead the first time. Then they were miraculously able to rebuild and have a good young roster moving forward. He obviously couldn't stand Cleveland having a hope for the future, so he came back and made sure that will never happen. Sure, the league gifted him a title, because if Draymond didn't get suspended (which never should have happened), Lebron would have torn the franchise apart for absolutely nothing.

[Marty McFly]

lol at comparing what dragic fetched for and what george, butler, and cousins fetched for as if dragic wasn't traded 2 years ago.

[JordansBulls]

Bulls should have kept Butler and used him to trade for Kyrie.

[MegaK]

I think Philly is one of the best landing spots for Kyrie. However, not sure how he would feel about sharing primary ball handling duties with Simmons. To be honest, though. I don't think KI is all that worried about being the only focal point of an offense. I think it has more to do with Bron constantly holding the entire franchise hostage and then inevitably bolting for greener pastures and leaving everyone else to deal with the garbage contracts he forced upon them.

Philly would be quite good if they added Kyrie to their roster, imo. Has to be considered.

Sure he left for greener pastures and left them with crap contracts

That is the only relevant part of your quote, the rest is just justification and posturing. He left them for dead the first time. Then they were miraculously able to rebuild and have a good young roster moving forward. He obviously couldn't stand Cleveland having a hope for the future, so he came back and made sure that will never happen. Sure, the league gifted him a title, because if Draymond didn't get suspended (which never should have happened), Lebron would have torn the franchise apart for absolutely nothing.

People have to stop with the "if draymond didn't get suspended" story line. That was one game that draymond didn't play. The Cavs won 3 straight games when they were down 3-1. Warriors choked and their bull jump shooting team died by the 3 as they lived by it all season. Lebrons the only reason Cleveland has a chip in the last 100 years. You've got to respect that and if Kyrie don't want to play with the best player in the NBA it's his choice. I'm sure he'll be fun to watch as the best player on a losing team.

[Scalabrine]

I think Philly is one of the best landing spots for Kyrie. However, not sure how he would feel about sharing primary ball handling duties with Simmons. To be honest, though. I don't think KI is all that worried about being the only focal point of an offense. I think it has more to do with Bron constantly holding the entire franchise hostage and then inevitably bolting for greener pastures and leaving everyone else to deal with the garbage contracts he forced upon them.

Philly would be quite good if they added Kyrie to their roster, imo. Has to be considered.

Sure he left for greener pastures and left them with crap contracts

That is the only relevant part of your quote, the rest is just justification and posturing. He left them for dead the first time. Then they were miraculously able to rebuild and have a good young roster moving forward. He obviously couldn't stand Cleveland having a hope for the future, so he came back and made sure that will never happen. Sure, the league gifted him a title, because if Draymond didn't get suspended (which never should have happened), Lebron would have torn the franchise apart for absolutely nothing.

Posturing? What I said was fact. In the Cavaliers nearly 50 year history of being in the NBA they have made the finals 4 times...all with LeBron James. If you want to act like him leaving for green pastures is such a disservice to the franchise that has experienced all of their success because of him then go for it, but as an optimist I'd rather have 4 years of being one of the best teams (and one year of winning) then the years they had before and after LeBron was under contract the first time around.