Nets Grant Kyrie Irving Permission To Seek Sign-And-Trade

Rumors have circulated lately that Kyrie Irving may want to leave the Nets and it appears he is now taking steps in that direction.

Per Kristian Winfield of the New York Daily News, Irving has requested and received permission from the Nets to pursue sign-and-trade arrangements as the sides have hit a deadlock in contract talks.

As we relayed, Irving has listed six teams as preferred destinations: The Lakers, Clippers, Heat, Knicks, Mavericks and 76ers. Per Albert De Roa of HoopsHype, the belief around the NBA is that Irving will not return to Brooklyn and that the Irving-Kevin Durant era is over.

None of those teams have the cap space to sign Irving outright, meaning a sign-and-trade would be Irving’s only path to any of them, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. None of the teams view acquiring Irving as a “priority,” Wojnarowski added.

But it seems as if the Nets too are ready to see what they can get in return for Irving — and likely Durant as well. It’s been reported that Durant has lost faith in the front office.

“The Nets, as the Daily News reported in late May, have been unwilling to give Irving a long-term contract extension with significant financial guarantees,” Winfield wrote. “They do not believe Irving is committed to doing what it takes to be on the floor every game for his teammates.”

This is all a far cry from the end of the season, when Irving told reporters he has no plans to go anywhere. On the other hand, Nets GM Sean Marks was a little more noncommittal when it came to Irving’s future with the franchise.

“It’d be unfair for me to comment on how it looks with us and Kyrie, because to be quite frank he has some decisions to make on his own. So he has to look at what he’s going to do with his player option,” Marks said in May, via the New York Post’s Brian Lewis. “We’re looking for guys that want to come in here and be part of something bigger than themselves, play selfless, play team basketball, and be available.” 

Marks didn’t mention Irving by name, but said that it is all about being a team player.

“You want people here to be part of something bigger than themselves,” Marks said. “It’s a team sports team game. It’s not individuals. We want people to be here for the right reasons, and buy into their roles, find their roles, high-character guys.

“We want to avoid the drama, we want to avoid the distractions. These last couple years here, whether it was expectation set on the team or some of the outside circumstances that were going on in the world, they affected our guys — both individually and as a group — really poorly, unfortunately.”

Irving, 30, averaged 27.4 points, 5.8 assists and 4.4 rebounds in 29 games this past season. He missed multiple games because of the New York City vaccine mandate, which was eventually lifted in time for the postseason.

Still, Irving and the Nets were swept from the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs by the Celtics.