2022 Everything Free Agency/Trades Thread
- Thread starter The_Jamal
- Start date
Yep. The above is why nobody other than the Lakers is currently attempting to trade for Kyrie. You can set aside the whacko flat earth nonsense, the wild conspiracy theories, and even the earnest political stances. Every NBA team will accept a player's activism and endure a player's most grating quirks if the player is talented enough, available enough, and if the locker room holds.
The problem with Irving is that he marches so recklessly to the beat of his own drum that he alienates himself from teammates, coaches, and front offices, and renders himself unavailable to play without consideration for the needs of the team. He may not play for any number of "personal reasons." He may not play because his individual choices are at odds with league rules or public policy. And he may not play because he's oft-injured and generally uninterested in returning to the court on anything but his own time table. Some of his absences are more justified than others, but regardless, the team he plays for gets left holding the bag.
And if Irving's lack of availability wasn't bad enough, his personality quirks also have a tendency to divide locker rooms. Despite the attention he draws to himself, he's never been a natural leader, and his very public quest for self-actualization seems to read as egocentrism to those around him. When notorious sulk extraordinaire James Harden demands a trade to get away from you because you're an even bigger malcontent than he is in the locker room, you know you've got a problem.
Regardless of his talent level, Kyrie Irving is really unreliable and a toxic presence on most teams. Front offices around the league have simply determined that he's not worth the headache. The Lakers are, of course, hoping that Lebron's prior stint with Irving might gift him with "Kyrie Whisperer" abilities, but it sure seems to me that Irving has only become more eccentric and mercurial in his attitudes since his time on the Cavaliers.
The problem with Irving is that he marches so recklessly to the beat of his own drum that he alienates himself from teammates, coaches, and front offices, and renders himself unavailable to play without consideration for the needs of the team. He may not play for any number of "personal reasons." He may not play because his individual choices are at odds with league rules or public policy. And he may not play because he's oft-injured and generally uninterested in returning to the court on anything but his own time table. Some of his absences are more justified than others, but regardless, the team he plays for gets left holding the bag.
And if Irving's lack of availability wasn't bad enough, his personality quirks also have a tendency to divide locker rooms. Despite the attention he draws to himself, he's never been a natural leader, and his very public quest for self-actualization seems to read as egocentrism to those around him. When notorious sulk extraordinaire James Harden demands a trade to get away from you because you're an even bigger malcontent than he is in the locker room, you know you've got a problem.
Regardless of his talent level, Kyrie Irving is really unreliable and a toxic presence on most teams. Front offices around the league have simply determined that he's not worth the headache. The Lakers are, of course, hoping that Lebron's prior stint with Irving might gift him with "Kyrie Whisperer" abilities, but it sure seems to me that Irving has only become more eccentric and mercurial in his attitudes since his time on the Cavaliers.
While a lot of Detroit basketball twitter and elsewhere is convinced Kings fans are just sour grapes and they got themselves a steal with Bagley (and some of this may be true), they should know that even with the "he's not Luka" we did enjoy more than a half season of honeymoon with Bags before it all went to crap. And he wasn't playing for a contract or with anything to prove at that time.
I certainly don't wish Bagley any ill will but until Detroit starts trying to play winning basketball and he shows he can play on both sides of the floor I don't think he's anything but a stat stuffer, perhaps he will be the next Jerami Grant type who Detroit can sell at a (small) profit in the last year of his contract. He should enjoy a fairly easy season under Casey with zero pressure but 3 years is a long time in Bagley land for it to go sideways.
I certainly don't wish Bagley any ill will but until Detroit starts trying to play winning basketball and he shows he can play on both sides of the floor I don't think he's anything but a stat stuffer, perhaps he will be the next Jerami Grant type who Detroit can sell at a (small) profit in the last year of his contract. He should enjoy a fairly easy season under Casey with zero pressure but 3 years is a long time in Bagley land for it to go sideways.
The key is, Detroit is paying Bagley for what he is and can be if his skill set is maximized. They aren't looking at it through a lense of what they wish he was.
Kings drafted a guy who was the focal point of an offense where he was fed the ball in the paint and then went to work scoring bucket after bucket. Comes to the Kings and gets chastised when he doesn't "playmake", isn't effective standing in the corner on offense shooting 3s and is not a rim protector. Every year, the Kings asked Marvin to change his game to match other players on the roster.
Glad Bagley found a team that fits him. Whatever comes of it is Detroit's issue now.
Kings drafted a guy who was the focal point of an offense where he was fed the ball in the paint and then went to work scoring bucket after bucket. Comes to the Kings and gets chastised when he doesn't "playmake", isn't effective standing in the corner on offense shooting 3s and is not a rim protector. Every year, the Kings asked Marvin to change his game to match other players on the roster.
Glad Bagley found a team that fits him. Whatever comes of it is Detroit's issue now.
I’ve done enough hw on him for him to be my new “I need the Kings to go get this man” now. Yuta Watanabe as someone, or someone’s, have mentioned a couple times here is our guy. SF depth, great energy off the bench, big effort guy, decent 3P% albeit on limited shots, good rebounder, surprisingly great shot blocker/rim protector for his position, and just enough handling to create a little on offense or at least not be lost with the ball in his hands. He’s more defense than offense at this point which is exactly what we’re missing and has some needed size/length. Anywhere from 6-7 to 6-9 depending on what website you’re looking at. I’m gonna need this to happen now.
I can’t speak to how Kyrie is with teammates or front office personnel and, actually, neither can you.
Either you believe in heresay or you don’t. Or opt to reserve judgement.
Not only that, as I said, you can dig up locker room dirt on most any diva player in the league. LBJ, KD, Bearded Hag, #77, etc., all have detractors and/or teammates they didn’t mesh well with.
So having said that, please educate me as to when Kyrie quit on his team. And please don’t cite his personal right to refuse vaccination. Because that’s not quitting, whether you or I agree with his personal choice or not.
Either you believe in heresay or you don’t. Or opt to reserve judgement.
Not only that, as I said, you can dig up locker room dirt on most any diva player in the league. LBJ, KD, Bearded Hag, #77, etc., all have detractors and/or teammates they didn’t mesh well with.
So having said that, please educate me as to when Kyrie quit on his team. And please don’t cite his personal right to refuse vaccination. Because that’s not quitting, whether you or I agree with his personal choice or not.
Dude refused to play on the Cavs coming off of a finals appearance, got traded to the Celtics and eventually straight up and abandoned them (this also led into the controversy in the playoffs last year when he was stepping on the Celtics logo after games and all that jazz), and then, irrespective of whether you agree with his vaccine stance or not, put his teammates in terrible position by refusig by to play any games at the beginning of the season and then eventually coming around to playing away games but only after the point where James Harden was so ticked off at the situation that he actively tanked their season.
The icing on the cake is this offseason where he made not so subtle efforts to find a shiny new contract elsewhere, only to opt in to his final year when he realized there were no other offers to be had. By that point, he had damaged the front office’s standing so much that Kevin Durant decided he longer wanted any part of a Brooklyn Big Two-and-a-Half.
this isn’t just about his vaccine stance. Brad Beal just got a quarter billion dollar extension and he’s been anti-vax from the start. Justin Holiday and Buddy Hield played for the Kings last season with nary an issue. Matiss Thybulle has been getting fawned over by basketball Twitter all offseason and he actually missed playoff games because Canada wasn’t going to let an unvaccinated player into their country.
This is a matter of Kyrie the personality, a personality that no team really seems interested in putting up with.
The icing on the cake is this offseason where he made not so subtle efforts to find a shiny new contract elsewhere, only to opt in to his final year when he realized there were no other offers to be had. By that point, he had damaged the front office’s standing so much that Kevin Durant decided he longer wanted any part of a Brooklyn Big Two-and-a-Half.
this isn’t just about his vaccine stance. Brad Beal just got a quarter billion dollar extension and he’s been anti-vax from the start. Justin Holiday and Buddy Hield played for the Kings last season with nary an issue. Matiss Thybulle has been getting fawned over by basketball Twitter all offseason and he actually missed playoff games because Canada wasn’t going to let an unvaccinated player into their country.
This is a matter of Kyrie the personality, a personality that no team really seems interested in putting up with.
Last edited:
A 5 min google search will answer any and all your questions. If you’ve been following the nba the last couple of seasons, Kyrie has been questionable at best about his commitment to play basketball. Has nothing to do with vaccine status at all. One example is when the Nets and Steve Nash included had no idea where Kyrie was and even said this when interviewed, followed by the usual “we support him…” nonsense because what else can you say? I would wager that Kyrie has received an incredible amount of flexibility from his teams (more so than any other player during this time period), but it’s not a stretch of the imagination to say he has thinned out a lot of his support. Ultimately, this is basketball and if you aren’t playing basketball you aren’t worth a contract like his. Point blank.
Yeah, nobody knows what it's like to be Kyrie Irving's teammate or work with him as a member of a front office. That's a bit of a weird argument since unless there are a few people on this board that have recently played in the NBA or worked as a GM that I don't know about, that's true for every single player in the NBA.
So we do what we've always done as fans - we get bits and pieces of info from reports, or the players actual words and actions. And when a player says he doesn't "talk to pawns" as his way of explaining why he ducked media obligations or joins a team that went to the playoffs the year before and then complains that the roster isn't good enough to win after going 6 for 21 as the team's "star" people will notice that.
And when that same player makes the choice to miss most of the season but then proclaims that he's going to "manage the franchise" alongside the owner and GM and states that his name is worth billions while calling everyone else puppets, or that "normal people keep the world going, but those how dare to be different lead us into tomorrow", people notice that too.
Yeah, some people criticize Kyrie for his anti-vax stance or his dalliance with flat earth beliefs, but most fans just see him as an out of touch athlete that thinks he's above/better than everyone else while not taking any accountability. And most fans have very little patience for that. I'm assuming teams and front offices do too.
So we do what we've always done as fans - we get bits and pieces of info from reports, or the players actual words and actions. And when a player says he doesn't "talk to pawns" as his way of explaining why he ducked media obligations or joins a team that went to the playoffs the year before and then complains that the roster isn't good enough to win after going 6 for 21 as the team's "star" people will notice that.
And when that same player makes the choice to miss most of the season but then proclaims that he's going to "manage the franchise" alongside the owner and GM and states that his name is worth billions while calling everyone else puppets, or that "normal people keep the world going, but those how dare to be different lead us into tomorrow", people notice that too.
Yeah, some people criticize Kyrie for his anti-vax stance or his dalliance with flat earth beliefs, but most fans just see him as an out of touch athlete that thinks he's above/better than everyone else while not taking any accountability. And most fans have very little patience for that. I'm assuming teams and front offices do too.
I'm sure Barnes is being shopped but right now we need another SF before we can trade him. It's a near certainty that we will "lose" the talent equation of any Barnes trade so I don't think this "lose an asset for nothing" talk is quite honest. The only benefit a team will get for trading for him is his Bird rights.
There's also benefit to Barnes playing out his contract this year, helping make a (hopeful) playoff bid and use his expiring contract to have some room in 2023 with Fox/Mitchell/Huerter/Sabonis/Monk/Murray all signed. Depends what the asset is, but min-maxing Barnes for a future asset doesn't make a ton of sense, especially in a season we want to win.
And personally, paying 31 year old Barnes another massive contract doesn't sound all that great to me anyway.
And personally, paying 31 year old Barnes another massive contract doesn't sound all that great to me anyway.
Before the Huerter trade I took the trade machine for a spin looking for a realistic small forward upgrade for Barnes, and it’s hard to come up with something that works. It’s probably harder now with the pick tied up after the Huerter trade. Maybe there’s still a deal around Barnes and Holmes for Hayward, but is that even an upgrade at this point? Certainly not on defense.
If Philly really wants to shed Tobias Harris' contract, Harris & Thybulle for Barnes, Holmes, and Davis works.
Holmes provides a solid backup for Embiid (which is important if Joel misses a fair number of games to rest and/or injury), Barnes gives them almost the same contribution as Harris for less money and comes off the books next summer, and Davis adds a bit more punch off the bench.
The Kings gain two wings (another 4/3 and a 2/3) but downgrade at backup center and would still have 3 open roster spots for their 3rd string PG, C and (depending on how you primarily view Thybulle) 3rd string SG or SF.
Holmes provides a solid backup for Embiid (which is important if Joel misses a fair number of games to rest and/or injury), Barnes gives them almost the same contribution as Harris for less money and comes off the books next summer, and Davis adds a bit more punch off the bench.
The Kings gain two wings (another 4/3 and a 2/3) but downgrade at backup center and would still have 3 open roster spots for their 3rd string PG, C and (depending on how you primarily view Thybulle) 3rd string SG or SF.