All signs are pointing to the Los Angeles Lakers trading for Kyrie Irving. At this point, it seems to be a matter of when the Lakers will trade for Kyrie, not a matter of if. This is fantastic for Los Angeles, as it turns a team that has no chance of contending with Russell Westbrook into a possible contender.
A potential Irving trade is going to be centered around the Nets getting Westbrook’s expiring as well as future draft capital. However, there are other players that could be looped into the trade as well, making it more complicated than just a Westbrook-for-Irving swap.
Here are 4 players that could be included in a Lakers trade for Kyrie Irving:
1. Talen Horton-Tucker
The Los Angeles Lakers have several reasons to trade Talen Horton-Tucker this offseason and it potentially got even easier for the team this offseason with the young players brought in.
Brooklyn is going to enter a new era of basketball without KD and Kyrie and it is hard for the team to simply commit to tanking considering the Houston Rockets essentially own the team’s future from the James Harden trade.
Thus, Brooklyn might be intrigued to bring in whatever young assets it can to build around in the future. Talen Horton-Tucker might not be that valuable of an asset in the grand scheme of things but it makes sense for Brooklyn to potentially pursue him, especially considering the Nets might loop in more players in this trade as well.
THT probably is not in the trade if there are no other Nets players coming back to the Lakers. However, LA might end up getting more than just Kyrie back from Brooklyn.