[The Athletic NBA] Kyrie Irving certainly has the right to leave in free agency. But the Mavericks don’t plan to assist any other team in acquiring him in a sign-and-trade, @tim_cato writes.

20 comments

1. Which means the Mavs FO don’t want DLo and your other negative player.

2. Mavs FO will fuck this up somehow

3. What? Thought the Lakers would get him for D’Lo and some scrubs?

4. Id trade him straight up for AD if it came down to that, no other deal tho.

5. Good.

6. If this is a direct quote to Cato then Kyrie and the Lakers are obviously trying in the background.

7. Not sure how the Mavs plan to replace him with nothing if he does leave, and I damn sure wouldn’t say no to Ayton in an S&T if it came down to it.

8. Also, this is subtext that maybe we would be open to a sign-and-trade but it would be expensive for the other team to do it.

9. Shaping up to be another “lose a star PG for nothing” type of an off season if the Mavs are stubborn about this and Kyrie truly wants to go to LA.

10. If we lose Kyrie we can just sign someone with our 26 million dollars in cap space. It probably wont equate to what Kyrie can provide us but its better than D lo or Ayton.

11. I hope Nico and co have No-Kyrie backup plans A-Z.

12. I’m sure the rockets magic or pistons would help if needed

13. I’d rather let Kyrie walk and have significantly more cap space than take a shitty contract

14. I think the point is to offer him the biggest max of anyone and at that point maintain as much leverage as possible if it gets down to a sign and trade scenario. But it needs to be a worthwhile offer and not expiring spares the lakers don’t want.

15. W

16. Can somebody share the content for us please ?

17. Just watch Cuban letting both Kyrie and Wood for nothing. For those who still didnt get this players have way too much value these days since there is nothing on FA and everything happening via trades.

18. The thing is to me though at least the Dlo trade sort of makes sense if we can get Rui or Beasley as well and honestly Dlo is unfortunately like one of the better FAs and we would have cap… It isn’t a great FA class. But if no one wants to recognize that we have leverage here then fuck em, gut your roster to sign Kyrie.

19. Depends on who the S&T is for.

    Giannis? Hell yes. Austin Reeves and Rui Hachimura? Fuck no.

    Edit: also makes me think the “handshake agreement” story is true if they’re hard lining it like this. If he made an agreement to stay, fuck helping him leave. If he wants stay but thinks he should “explore his options” or some shit like that, the front office needs to be very clear they won’t put up with his stupid games. No Nets drama here kid. You make an agreement, you keep that agreement.

20. If you want Kyrie, you’re gonna have to give us AD lmao