Echoing an Adrian Wojnarowski report from earlier this week, Marc Stein confirms in his latest Substack article that the Lakers have assured LeBron James they’re willing to give up their 2027 and 2029 first-round picks in a trade that can help make the team a legitimate contender again.
Because they traded their 2024 first-round pick to New Orleans and gave the Pelicans the option to defer that pick to 2025, the Lakers are ineligible to trade a first-rounder earlier than 2027 due to the Stepien rule, which prohibits teams from leaving themselves without a first-round pick in consecutive future drafts.
However, L.A. could move its 2027 and 2029 picks without violating that rule, and Stein is the second reporter this week to suggest the club would be willing to surrender both those first-rounders in a trade for Nets guard Kyrie Irving. The seven-time All-Star is believed to be at or near the top of James’ wish list, with one report indicating that LeBron was “privately adamant” prior to signing his extension about wanting the Lakers to trade for his former teammate.
Crucially, Stein notes that it’s unclear whether or not the Lakers would insist on protecting those two first-round picks — that’s an important factor, since obviously a pair of lottery-protected first-rounders wouldn’t be nearly as valuable as two unprotected selections.
In any case, the Nets have thus far “steadfastly rejected” the concept of an Irving/Russell Westbrook swap that involves them acquire those two Lakers’ first-rounders, according to Stein, who says that Brooklyn apparently remains focused on acquiring win-now assets in any Kyrie trade.
While it’s possible that position eventually changes, especially if the Nets end up moving Kevin Durant, it appears for now that any trade sending Irving to L.A. would require a third team to take Westbrook and those draft picks and send win-now pieces to Brooklyn, Stein writes.
The Nets’ aversion to a Westbrook/Irving deal may also be linked to their desire to simply keep their current roster intact, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst suggested during an appearance on Get Up on Thursday (video link). Even though Kyrie seriously explored finding a new home before exercising his player option and Durant has demanded a trade, Brooklyn hasn’t shown any urgency to break up its core.
“I think Kyrie is invested in being a Brooklyn Net next year,” Windhorst said. “Obviously there was some turmoil with his contract extension not happening. He realizes his best path going forward to get the contract he wants in Brooklyn or elsewhere is to have a very good season. From what I can gather, it appears that he and the Nets are looking forward to meeting up in training camp.
“Now, whether Kevin Durant is there and his level of buy-in, that’s the big question,” Windhorst continued. “But right now, I think the Nets want to run this team back, and they’re hoping that Kevin Durant agrees. The way that they’re conducting trade talks and the prices that they are asking has teams out there thinking they don’t really want to trade Kevin Durant anyway, they want to bring this team back. We’ll see if Durant goes along with that, come training camp.”
i’m so done with all this drama, does anyone even care about the kyrie lakers rumors anymore? it’s not gonna happen it’s all talk
They have nothing else worth talking about. Most teams are set for opening day. Nets don’t want Westbrook is why that deal has not gone down. That is more something down the road if the Nets are out of playoff race.
yea i mean i get that but they can also do finals predictions, standings predictions, mvp predictions, stuff like that. more entertaining than another kd or kyrie thing
Why bother clicking the article then? Let’s whine about the articles that you choose to read that makes a lot of sense
Misery loves company
Not sure how you figure they dont want Westbrook. They either pay him or Kyrie this year and if you choose Russ then you’ll also get two 1sts that could very well be top 15 picks. 1st rounders btw are something a rebuilding Nets team lacks
Why help the lakers and maybe get decent draft value back, when you can just stay on course and flip Durant for much better picks?
The logic is that if they wanted Westbrook; the trade would have happened already….
Based on the amount of time this trade has been talked about; it appears that they either don’t want him, think they can get more than the picks, or the Lakers aren’t really offering the picks.
Things can make plenty of sense on paper, but if they don’t happen after months of speculation you have to assume that one of the parties is not interested in or not really offering the assets in question.
Getting Westbrook would be the back up trade plan. They would rather wait until a team offers more than 2 draft picks and a player they don’t want. So that is why they will wait before trading him.
Nobody is giving them more than the Lakers for KI, most teams wont trade for him period at any price. If he balls out insanely hard, causes zero drama, and misses almost no games they could maybe get some better offers mid season. Those are some huge ifs though, and if KD holds out KI might just join him and then you get nothing!
Kyrie is a better player than Westbrook at this point in their careers. Kyrie also want a big contract so he will end up playing for the money. If him and KD ends up playing they are probably in the playoffs so that is the hope of the Nets not throwing away a year of nothing on Westbrook.
Westbrook is getting about $11M more than Irving this year so it’s not straight forward. Even if they have one that large available, I don’t believe they can use a TPE to cover the difference. I don’t see a one on one trade happening.
Westbrook and Irving are so selfish, not willing to sacrifice and pay cut.
The Lakers have been mostly an embarrassment since Dr. Jerry passed.
Agreed. The Westbrook trade has proven this current regime has absolutely no clue.
As much as I want to clown the lakers FO that trade had GM Lebron’s name all over it
I agree. But no competent FO would let a player make that decision in the first place.
Another Kyrie to the Lakers story about nothing! Article just says the Lakers are willing to part with their 1st round picks. Brooklyn and Kyrie have already made peace! There Will Be No Trade! Perhaps the rebuilding Pacers will be interested in Myles Turner and Buddy Hield for those picks. Kyrie ain’t happening!
Yes
Westbrook to third team, always
Third team offers an bottom line all star
Nets aren’t getting a better offer. And if they want other players, get a 3rd team involved that’s looking to shed salary. If the Hornets are still looking to dump Hayward and Rozier, that’s not garbage. Westbrook won’t mesh again w KD. The other two are a better fit for the time being. Also, if they do u load KD, they’d be better suited with team construction versus having two point guards that can’t shoot.
You’d play Simmons, Rozier off ball, Hayward, then a PF and Claxton. Depending on the package for KD, you might push someone to the bench.
If the Nets want Hayward and Rozier they would have to redirect one of the picks to CHO since they wont trade those 2 for Westbrook straight up, and probably dont want a player that ball dominant when Lamelo is on the team…
Nets and Kyrie have made Peace! There Will Be No Trade!
I guess I missed the head line that said LeBron was the Lakers owner.
The main problems:
No team wants to pay Brickbrook $47 mil.
No team wants to do the Lakers a favor, nor should they.
Westbrook is the same as any other dead asset. Plenty of bad contracts have been traded over the years
@NBA is OK:
Your second sentence is definitely correct.
For your first sentence; I would put it that no team wants to pay Brickbrook (I like Westbrick better) $47 mil unless they can shed unwanted contracts of their own. Since Westbrick is on an expiring contract, that has value to a team looking to shed multi-year bad contracts.
Westbrook is a negative asset at this point, his only value is as an expiring contract
I kind of like Brickbrook tbh.
But yes Russ isn’t a negative asset for a team that just wants to buy him out clear cap and stash the picks.
2 1sts is more than any other offer I’ve heard for Kyrie. By a good margin too.
If the pelicans committed to taking the 2024 pick and not the 2025 one, could the lakers then trade the 2026 pick? And same for trading the 2023 pick of Pelicans committed to 2025?
Maybe the lakers would benefit from just pushing the pelicans to make a decision. A second rounder or some money for their troubles seems fair.
The Pels know they have all the leverage so its probably worth more than a second to have your choice of Lakers picks in the post Lebron era!
Give me a protected 27 pick to remove earlier protections or F off pretty much.
Also how many future seconds do the Lakers even have?
That’s outright manipulation of assets. They got a trade rescinded long ago for trying something just like that.
Maybe if LeBron wanted to be a contender again he would take less money. But he didn’t do that. No the Lakers have to have 0 first rounders for 7 years to make him happy?
Gotta be ready to bring Bronny on board!
And this is why fans are walking away from the NBA. Super teams makes it non-competitive, to players get to tell their team what to do and what not to do. It’s completely Bs and drama. I used to be a huge nba fan, but I personally feel like Lebron is hurting the NBA and making the worse for players, teams and fans.
You’re commenting on a basketball message board. If you really want to take a step back from the NBA maybe stopping is step one
Tanner has a totally valid point. Sorry it’s not aligned with your NBA worship but it’s a sentiment many basketball fans share. If you don’t want to hear it keep on scrolling…
Blah blah blah let me cry about the the nba blah blah blah wait I’m typing this on a basketball forum about the nba. Blah blah blah safe space blah blah blah
If you don’t like a comment, you can keep on scrolling too bro. Not trying to be rude, just trying to clue you in on something you seem to be missing.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. Let’s talk about basketball and not police each other’s comments.
The Lakers didn’t even make the playoffs. Nets got eliminated in the first round. Golden State drafted or traded for most of their guys. Boston was also built through the draft. But sure superteams are ruining the NBA lol.
Save the propaganda bro, this is a NBA rumors site.
In person attendance has been down for all sports and public events in general during the last two years. You see there was this thing called Covid-19, you may have heard of it? Yet somehow the NBA still had more revenue than projected.
There hasn’t been a “superteam” win a championship in some time. In fact over the history of the NBA. The last team that won with a superteam was the 2017-2018 Warriors.
Competition in NBA is at an all time high right now. Well at least in the last 40 years I’ve been watching. The last 4 seasons have featured 4 different champions. As to who will win it this season? Your guess is as good as mine. You have Golden State, Boston, the Clippers and Milwaukee as odds on contenders with Denver, Miami, Memphis, Phoenix and Minnesota right behind them along with Chicago and Philly ready to pounce if they get the proper breaks. That’s 11 teams that in my opinion could hoist the trophy at the end of it all.
Super Team is the most overused phrase in NBA. There are no super teams. A “Super Team” would be a team that is so much better than all other teams with several All NBA players. GS with Durant could probably be considered a Super Team. Having a couple all-stars <= Super Team.
What fans are walking away from the nba? The league is more popular and successful than ever before in history. Too bad the facts don’t fit your made-up narrative.
The fans who watch games on TV are walking away. There’s been a 25% overall decrease of viewership since 2019. It only increased last year due to the success of a couple major market teams. Warriors have been the main draw for almost decade and the Celtics for 60+ years. I’m not making this stuff up.
As a rockets fan I wish the nets would trade for Westbrook and sign him to a long term deal. That would make the picks from the Harden trade so much more valuable
If Durant truly wants to leave, he might have to pull a Jimmy Butler. He went HAM in Minnesota and got traded. That said, I don’t know if he has the personality to cuss out his teammates and coaches and challenge everybody to fight. Lol!
Just chuck a shot no matter where on the floor the ball comes to you stylie…
Like Andrew Bogut said if Durant wants to speed up this process he just needs to tweet out ‘Free Hong Kong, Free Taiwan.’ Joe Tsai would trade him before the day was over.
I still think he will suddenly come down with mental issues at training camp.
HR needs to run a poll on who is a better GM…LeBron James or Kevin Durant?
Lakers giving up so many picks down the line that both LeBron and Bronny will be retired before they pick in the first round again
If Kyrie truely wanted to have become a laker he wouldn’t have opted in to his player option with Nets. So why would the Nets now turn around and help him go to the Lakers
So they can get assets for him….
I mean had he not opted in then the Nets wouldn’t have received anything
Except Kyrie obviously was unwilling to lose $30 mil to become a Laker.
Trade Kyrie and Kidd for Westbrook and Horry!
One and foremost the only draft capital the Lakers have is A.D. when they are willing to part with him is when you can start believing anything else.
Assuming Westbrook is still a Laker Sept 1st it’s a rental for rental trade at the deadline. Not a second before.