Getty Kyrie Irving #11 of the Brooklyn Nets drives to the basket during the first half against the Miami Heat
The will-they or won’t-they questions around the Brooklyn Nets and trade discussions involving their two biggest stars, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant, continue. Each day it feels less likely that a team can put together the assets to land Durant in what the Nets want to be a historic haul of players and picks. With the window possibly waning on different Durant deals, perhaps the Nets and other teams will look for trades to boost their lineups that don’t include KD. For the Nets, this could mean moving Kyrie Irving.
Some NBA insiders speculated that Durant’s trade request wasn’t about getting away from the Nets. It was about getting away from Kyrie Irving.
“There’s a school of thought, speaking to people around the league, that they think that the Durant trade request wasn’t actually about him getting out of Brooklyn. It was about getting Kyrie out of Brooklyn,” Dave McMenamin shared on “The Lowe Post” podcast on July 18.
If that’s the case, maybe the Nets will look to move on from Irving, and a July 21 trade proposal from Bleacher Report’s Greg Swartz had them doing just that.
Nets Trade Kyrie to Miami
Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo! Sports reported on July 1 that the Nets are so done with Irving that they could look to use the stretch-and-waive provision to get rid of him if they aren’t able to trade him. Instead of dealing the All-Star point guard, maybe the Nets could land a trade for Irving. One team they could look to complete a deal for is the Miami Heat. If the Heat aren’t able to propose a deal good enough for Durant, maybe Irving could be their answer.
Swartz proposed such a move in his July 21 piece, entitled “5 Risky NBA Trades That Could Actually Work”:
Heat Receive: Kyrie Irving and Day’Ron Sharpe
Nets Receive: Kyle Lowry, Duncan Robinson, and Max Strus
In the proposal, the Nets get a pretty good haul back for sending Irving and Day’Ron Sharpe to South Beach. The Nets would land six-time All-Star Kyle Lowry, one of the league’s biggest three point threats in Duncan Robinson, and another sharpshooting forward, Max Strus.
Does the Deal Make Sense?
Do these potential trade proposals make sense for both sides? The Heat get a dynamic guard that Jimmy Butler said on “First Take” in 2017 he wants to play with. They get rid of the excessive Robinson contract and set their team up to again contend for an Eastern Conference crown.
The Nets free themselves from Irving and the drama that follows him. They also land two incredible shooters that would space the floor nicely for Ben Simmons, who thrives with shooters around him. If Durant truly does want to get away from Irving and play for the Nets, this may be the trade that puts Brooklyn in the best situation. Lowry would be a quality guard to split the ballhandling duties with Simmons. Also, if you look at the sheer amount of shooters the nets will have with Durant, Joe Harris, Robinson, Strus, TJ Warren, and Patty Mills? That’s lethal.