Lakers briefly considered Kyrie Irving trade in beginning of season?

Kyrie Irving’s future with the Brooklyn Nets looked uncertain early last season when he was away from the team due to his unvaccinated status. During that period, a few teams at least considered looking into the possibility of trading for the star guard.

One of those teams, perhaps surprisingly, was the Los Angeles Lakers, according to Ian Begley of SNY. The Lakers had some internal discussions about a potential Irving trade, but it does not appear that they ever went beyond that.

There are multiple angles to this. First is that the Lakers were at least willing to think about pairing Irving with LeBron James despite their history. There were even rumors that Irving and Anthony Davis were at odds, which would have made things much tougher to work out.

This may also be an indication that the Lakers sensed issues with Russell Westbrook early on and may have been thinking about changes fairly quickly. This was never seriously considered, but it all makes for an intriguing hypothetical.