Kyrie Irving has been showing up at Lakers games during the postseason and people have taken the opportunity to suggest that Irving, a free agent, wants to join LeBron James on the Los Angeles Lakers, a team that just made a run to the Western Conference Finals. But what if we had it wrong the entire time? What if we had the players, but not the place? On Monday, the morning after Game 2 of the NBA Finals, a new rumor entered the arena.
What if instead of Kyrie going to Los Angeles, he simply lured LeBron James to Dallas to form a superteam with Luka Doncic! Shams explained the plan to Kay Adams this morning.
While Yahoo!'s Chris Haynes had a similar scoop about how the Mavs had wanted to acquire James this season, even though they actually couldn't because of his most recent contract extension.
This is all pretty wild stuff, obviously leaked by Kyrie Irving, who most certainly would like to get LeBron to Dallas, but what if it goes much deeper? What if this really is something that the players have been talking about behind closed doors? What if Bill Simmons heard a rumor about this back in March and mentioned it on podcast as a half-baked idea? Or better yet, what if he provided Kyrie and LeBron with a spark of inspiration?
Simmons prediction was that Draymond Green, who has a player option, would head to Dallas and LeBron would try to find a way to get there as well. LeBron likes Luka and he is good friends with Draymond and Kyrie so from a personnel standpoint, it makes perfect sense.
One month earlier the Basketball Illuminati podcast also mused about LeBron to Dallas, but with Bronny James in mind.
Is there actually a way to get LeBron to Dallas with or without Draymond? I have no idea. The Mavericks would need to negotiate three fairly large contracts and one trade with a team in the Western Conference. It doesn't seem plausible, but that's for Mark Cuban to worry about.
The Mavericks owner is worth about $5 billion and he wants to win so does he really care about aprons and tampering and whatever else he needs to ignore to bring another title to Dallas?
This article was originally published on thebiglead as Bill Simmons 'Predicted' LeBron Would Join Kyrie, Luka (and Draymond) in Dallas in March.
