For all the speculative, high-level drama of this past week with Kyrie Irving, Monday’s events indicated nothing had fundamentally changed yet as far as his NBA future is concerned.
Forced to consider his options after Brooklyn refused to lay out a max extension, Irving, who began indicating which teams he’d agree to be dealt to following a choice to opt out, decided to opt in at his $36.5 million number for the final year of his deal with the Nets. That and the remote and risky possibility of his leaving $30 million on the table to join the Lakers for the midlevel exception—a somewhat inconceivable one, since Irving is north of 30, with no other guaranteed paydays in the offing and a Nike shoe deal on the fritz—were really the only two outcomes that existed.
So now we end up with what should have been relatively obvious at the conclusion of last season: with Brooklyn and likely 29 other NBA teams that would currently be unwilling to shell out a long-term commitment to someone who’s been as unpredictable, unreliable and flimsy as Irving. And it leaves him with a massive opportunity to show this coming season he’s worth a bigger commitment for his next contract, despite what’s happened in the recent past.
