NBA insider Brian Windhorst: Trade involving Kyrie Irving, Russell Westbrook 'eventually going to happen'
Kyrie Irving opted into his $37 million player option with the Brooklyn Nets in late June. Russell Westbrook followed suit with his $47.1 million opt-in shortly thereafter with the Los Angeles Lakers.
Despite persistent rumors since then, it was reported last week that the Lakers and Nets had "no traction" on a potential trade involving Irving. On Friday morning however, one NBA insider conveyed a different message.
The latest word from Windhorst comes after the insider said in late June that "high-ranking people" believed that Irving getting traded to Los Angeles wasn't off of the table, despite the opt-in. Prior to the multi-million dollar decision from "Uncle Drew," Brooklyn granted him permission to seek sign-and-trade deals with other teams.
Irving joined the Nets in 2019 as a free agent shortly after the team added Kevin Durant, and after James Harden was acquired by the team in January 2021, they had what was widely considered the best "Big Three" in the league. Despite the talent, the Nets failed to reach an NBA Finals, first falling to the Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference semifinals in 2021 and then being swept by the Boston Celtics in the first round of the 2022 playoffs.
Westbrook is coming off of a trying first season with the Lakers, as his year as a part of his own "Big Three" with LeBron James and Anthony Davis fell wildly short of expectations as well. The 2016-17 league MVP is entering the final season of his original five-year, $206 million contract that began when he was still on his first NBA team, the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Since the start of the deal, Westbrook has been traded from the Thunder to the Houston Rockets, then from the Rockets to the Washington Wizards and then from Washington to Los Angeles.
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