Sites for betting are not ones to miss an opportunity and have begun to speculate on where point guard Kyrie Irving will play next season. The 2011 first overall pick has reportedly tired of playing Lancelot to LeBron James’s King Arthur and has requested a trade to a team where he can be the top dog. Like Richard III, Kyrie has a hunch he’s gonna be king. Irving is an obdurate flat-earther and at first it would appear as if he’s trying to perpetrate yet another hoax by splintering the Cavs’ core in a league where the key to success is not to dilute but to concentrate – as exemplified by the Golden State Warriors.
But unfortunately, and to quote Olympic hero Kurt Angle, “oh, it’s true; it’s damn true.” At least according to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst. “Irving has said that he wants to play in a situation where he can be more of a focal point and that he no longer wants to play alongside LeBron James, sources said,” Windhorst reported on Friday. And according to Stephen A Smith, also of ESPN, Irving is under the belief the it was LeBron of all people who leaked the news of his trade request, which he intended to be private. So we can add Jean Jacques Rousseau-levels of paranoia to the list of Kyrie’s issues.
Nonetheless, sites for betting list the Cavaliers as faves to retain Irving’s services above the New York Knicks, the San Antonio Spurs, and the Minnesota Timberwolves. Why they would want to is another matter entirely. For all intents and purposes Irving has all but Bridge on the River Kwai his relationship with the Cavs. According to ESPN’s Zach Lowe, Cleveland is in the market for “a blue-chip young player … one or two veterans … and picks.” And Kyrie just put them in a position in which they can satisfy all those needs with one fell swoop. “Most teams, including the asset-rich Celtics, have placed the obligatory call letting Cleveland know they would like to be kept in the loop,” writes Lowe.
As it turns out, the Cavs may have had designs on trading Irving for quite a while now. According to Ramona Shelburne, Dave McMenamin, Windhorst and CBSD Sports’ Colin Ward-Henninger, Irving was peeved when h found that he was included in potential trades for Jimmy Butler and Paul George earlier in the summer. So he was so angry at the possibility of being traded that he asked to be traded. Yeah, that’ll learn’em a lesson. Then again, if spite truly is his motivation, then removing himself from the Cavs is what would hurt them the most. As Bill Livingston writes on Cleveland.com “Kyrie Irving and his runaway ego imperil Cleveland Cavaliers.” According to Livingston, in the James-less years, Kyrie “proved he couldn’t make a bad team a winner” and truth be told he is rather unlikely to prove otherwise in any of the teams that sites for betting point to as possible destinations for Irving.
