Kevin Durant stays with the Brooklyn Nets: Effects on the Los Angeles Lakers
Durant’s decision to stay with the Nets affects Irving, the player requested by LeBron: now the Lakers are focused on other players to improve the roster.
Cascading moves are expected in the NBA now that the biggest impediment to team movements has been resolved.
It’s been almost two months since Kevin Durant requested to leave the Brooklyn Nets, and after absorbing almost all the attention of the market, all the parties involved have now announced that the star forward will continue right where he is.
Now that that impasse has been resolved, the market is once again open for players who have not been signed, and for franchises that want a change of scenery. One of them is the Los Angeles Lakers.
The Lakers, Durant, and Kyrie Irving
The Californian team has assumed the renewal of LeBron James, who has extended his relationship with them for two more years, as one more tightening of the screw. The goal was clear: they must move to improve the squad. With Durant’s decision, the road map on which they were basing their moves the last few weeks has been broken.
That the former NBA MVP stays in Brooklyn means, unless fate and the heads of these players play tricks again, that Kyrie Irving will also stay there.
The Lakers were the only ones interested, according to what was published at the time, in receiving someone as problematic and as magical as Kyrie, endorsed by LeBron himself. Other aspects of a possible trade could have involved Russell Westbrook.
All these belong to the past, and Los Angeles now has to focus on other options.
A multi-party trade involving Westbrook
Moving Westbrook would open up the spectrum in unimaginable ways. With his opt-in in June, he secured the $47 million that belonged to him by contract, and that is too much for the Lakers to bear given his performance in the 2021-22 season.
Releasing Westbrook could be a difficult proposition, but it could be made more feasible if multiple teams were involved in the trade.
The matter of Donovan Mitchell
The other great movement that was cooking in the NBA was that of Donovan Mitchell in the Utah Jazz, a franchise that has already transferred Rudy Gobert and is now looking to do the same with the other high-caliber star they have on their hands.
When a team is looking to build from scratch, other teams can take advantage. The New York Knicks are trading hard for the shooting guard, but there are other suitors.
Arizona journalist John Gambadoro points to several- the Cleveland Cavaliers, Washington Wizards, Charlotte Hornets and, to amplify the fireworks, the Lakers and Nets, who were trying to close a deal for Kyrie Irving.
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The conversations are moving to opening the talks to more teams in the case of these last two. Mitchell is the player who could be the key to achieving a multi-team arrangement, not only in terms of transfer but also of having openings to sign some quality players who are still without a team.
In the case of the Lakers it sounds much more plausible to try to get Irving in a package in which Mitchell goes the other way. In this formula there must be more players involved. One can to look to Utah to see a couple of them.
As Shams Charania explained on the famed Pat McAfee Show, there is real interest in two: Patrick Beverley and Bojan Bogdanovic. Beverley left the Minnesota Timberwolves in the transfer of Gobert, and is now with the Jazz, which has yet to see how their rebuild with turn out.
The forward has improved on the Utah squad, showing a defensive facet that has completed him as a player, but Jazz chief Danny Ainge may measure how much he can get for him now that winning is not the organization’s number one priority.