Kyrie Irving has reportedly reached out to LeBron James about joining Mavericks | NBA | UNDISPUTED

How are you going to make this happen, Skip? I don't think LeBron James uprooted his family from Cleveland, Ohio, to come out here to L.A. all of a sudden. So you know what? I want to spend my final couple of years in Dallas. As his son is about to play at USC. Thank you. I don't think he's going to move further away from his family. Look, I don't know Savannah. But it just seems like, for what I do see, I think she likes L.A. I really do think she likes L.A. My question to Savannah would be, who doesn't? Exactly. So I don't think people are uprooted to say, you know what, man? I'm leaving L.A. to live in the private space with someone of LeBron James's caliber. And say, you know what? I think I'm going to go to a hot, muggy Dallas. It's not that muggy. Compared to L.A., it's hell. I would agree with that. Take it from someone who lived in Dallas for 15 odd years, whatever it was. No offense to Dallas, but I'll take L.A. any day or any night. Most people would. Skip, I just don't see that happening. And Skip, I don't really look at Kyrie as one of these guys that moves the needle. No. He's not a Giannis in Goat Tales management. I need you to go get this. No. He's not one of these big guys that can say a Nicola Jokic or Dame or one of these guys, KD, says, OK, I need you to go get this guy and bring them up under the pole. I don't look at Kyrie. Now, maybe I'm seeing things. I'm on the outside looking in, maybe on the inside looking out. They say, OK, yeah, Kyrie, sure, we try to make that happen. But I don't see that as being the case. With all that being said, I also the father of the better thing is LeBron is not leaving L.A. Everything that he's wanted, the thing that Magic Johnson sold him off like LeBron. Everything that you need. You want to start a production company? You want to get into the movie business? You want to get into the TV business? It's right here. You want to become a billionaire in the next five years? Yeah. It's right here. If you want to, you know, build LeBron James Inc. Yeah. Everything you need to do that is right here. I do not see this man in the last two years of his career. And I'm just saying two years because he has this year. He has a player option the following year. The last two years saying, you know what? Have my full of L.A. palm trees, man. Seventy five degrees every single day. Very little rain. Yeah. The last couple of months notwithstanding. Thank you. Yeah. Dallas is where I want to be. I don't see that happening, Skip. So I give this. This is even less than a chance. This is less than two percent. I'm talking about point zero zero zero. Fifteen zeros and a one. Okay. I'll do fifteen zeros and another zero. I'll go to sixteen straight zeros. Okay. To all the points you just correctly and exactly made. My head is hurting this morning after reading all these stories, speculating on all these angles to this potential renewed partnership between LeBron and Kyrie. Okay. In the biggest picture, do I believe LeBron and Kyrie would like a do over like another time? Yes, I do. But it's pie in the sky on both sides because it's just not going to happen. It makes no sense. Right. First thing I would like to stress here, this is being leaked from somebody. And oftentimes I have called LeBron and company onto the carpet. Oh, you're leaking this story to take the focus off this or that or whatever. No, no, no, no, no. This has nothing to do with LeBron and Clutch Sports leaking any of this because they want nothing to do with any of this because they are staying in L.A. And I do believe LeBron will be back next year. I can't say for sure two years when he has another option year. Right. But but next year, it's almost fifty million dollars. Forty seven. Yeah. Forty seven million that he will play next year. You fully wholeheartedly agree he will play next year. And then he has a player option for a little more than 50 million the following year. I believe he will opt into that and play a second year at a fairly high level. Yes. So given that, given that they have sort of a pie in the sky dream up, wouldn't it be nice if we played together? The onus here is strictly on Kyrie. He and his camp are leaking this to try to re up his value with Mark Cuban because listen, it did not work. I don't care what anybody says. And I did first guess it. Kyrie and Luca, you can say small sample size, but they did play 16 games together and they went five and 11 and they wound up speaking of 11 as the 11th seed in the West, which means they missed the playoffs. So nothing good came out of it to the point that Mark Cuban is sending signals to Kyrie's camp. I think we'd like to do a little more of a team friendly deal here for you to stay in Dallas, even though he needs Kyrie pretty desperately. He's sending a little message here and there that maybe you could help us out here because you're 31 now and this might be your only landing spot because I'm not sure there's a hot market out there for Kyrie, including the Los Angeles Lakers who have made it pretty clear internally to externally that they're not interested in Kyrie. They're definitely not maxing them out. They're not maxing them out. Would they do it for a big discount? They would think about it, but help me out. What's a big discount compared to what Kyrie could get from Mark Cuban? 5274, right? That's the max that he could get, but they're trying to do a little more. What about a three year? Okay. All right, 150. All right, but you're up again. If you're just talking about money is the object here. Texas has no state income taxes. You know, California has a severe state income tax, which we both do not benefit Okay. So the point of that is that how much less would Kyrie take to come here and live in La La Land and play at the crypt and play alongside LeBron? I've told you from the start, if I were Kyrie and I'd made all the money that he has made, I would take a big discount to come here. It would be contingent on, let's just say for the sake of argument for this discussion, you said take a discount to come here. Let's just say last year didn't happen in Brooklyn. Okay. There's no issue with Nike. There's no issue. There's no. That's a whole nother issue. There's no issue with the movie or whatever. Okay. Now, Skip, you're starting to make sense because Kyrie can parlay Kyrie into something out here. Maybe movies, maybe production, all those things. But considering. Okay. None of those things are in play. What sense does it make for him to take a pay cut to come to LA? Okay. He doesn't get an opportunity to benefit of some of the things that LA would have to offer. Okay. My head's aching now from all this because in the end, Mark Stein, you know of Mark, I know him very well, as plugged in as it gets. And he wrote yesterday on his Stein line. It behooves Irving to advance the idea that he can lead a Dallas push for LeBron James amid a belief in various corners of the league that Dallas would prefer to sign Irving to that the sides can agree upon. Irving's value to the Mavericks theoretically increases if his ability to recruit is factored in. Well, this is a bunch of bogus, hocus pocus about recruit LeBron James to come to Dallas. How? How about a sign and trade? LA wants no part of anything that Dallas could trade them, right? No. Okay. So, I mean, Hardaway. No, no. We can go on. I can't, I can't even begin to make. They're not going to give you the box office. I mean, if you, if the Lakers were to trade LeBron James, their value would decrease 200 to $500 million. I agree. Hardaway Jr. And whoever else ain't LeBron James at the box office. Okay. So hypothetically, I'm this, you want to talk about pie in the sky, right? The only way this could happen to me is if somehow Mark Cuban lost his mind and said, I'll trade you straight up right now. Luca for LeBron. To what end? Why would Mark Cuban do that? Okay. But it's the only way this would work for Kyrie to get LeBron, but then he would get LeBron without Luca. Yeah, but you get LeBron for two years and then you give up on having Luca for 10 years. I'm pretty sure the Lakers, not quickly. I don't think that would be a slam dunk decision, but I think the Lakers would say, yeah, okay, okay. We'll do that. They would not like losing LeBron for the next two years because he is the ultimate, ultimate box office. He is Laker land. He is Laker nation. He is it. He is face of franchise face of the league. I can imagine. I mean, you're old enough to remember Elvis in his absolute pride, but Elvis in the mid seventies was still Elvis. He was still a draw. Now LeBron James might be 20, not might not be 26, 28 year old LeBron James, but he's still a big draw. Unfortunately, Elvis didn't stay in LeBron. Ask Shane. He got a little heavy and he had some other issues going on. LeBron has none of those. LeBron is still pretty much LeBron. I mean, we know he's on the downside, but look, all things considered, he had a great year, right? He had a great year. And I don't doubt that he can have a very good year. And I believe so too. And I don't doubt that the Lakers as is just as is if they can sort of keep it all together. Basically, I think they can contend for the Western Conference Championship. They're going to have to get by the team that's in the finals right now, which is not getting any that that much older. They're going to be around for a while. But the point is, that's the only the only pie in the sky way. The only like preposterous way I could see that this would ever happen is that Mark Cuban and say, I want LeBron as a draw in Dallas. Would you do this? Well, then I think, well, LeBron doesn't have a no trade. I don't think anybody does. But again, I mean, some of the guys do like a Giannis has a no trade. Some of those guys. But I think because because you need to have like a certain number of years with the team before you get a no trade. LeBron balk at this idea. Sure, he would. Yeah. Even though just for the record, does LeBron like or even love Jason Kidd because he was on the championship team? Right. Jared Dudley, guy I know very well. Was he on LeBron's championship team in the bubble? Yes, he was. And is he now an assistant under Jason Kidd? Yes, he is. So LeBron will be comfortable with that coaching staff. And yet LeBron and Kyrie only. What would you have? LA Dallas. LA Dallas, I mean. All right. Listen, I I like LeBron's chances with with Anthony Davis way better than I would like LeBron and Kyrie and all those guys we just talked about in Dallas. This team is way better. Right. So what does LeBron benefit from that? I'm doing like an absurd idea of Lucas straight up for LeBron. Absolutely nothing. Okay. So what is going on here? This is all about a Kyrie Irving, who is Shannon. He's fairly desperate. Let's look. Think about what just happened. Okay. So he he goes to Dallas. So let's see. Wasn't it like the fourth or the fifth seed when he arrived? Yeah, they were the fourth seed. Okay. But think about his recent history since since he left LeBron. What happened? He went to Boston. And was that not pretty much a disaster? Okay. Then he goes to Brooklyn. Didn't it turn into pretty much of a disaster? Okay. Then he goes to Luca. And I know it's a small sample size, but I'm going to stamp it with disaster. Right. Okay. What's what's his recent track record? He's even made public statements about how basketball is no longer my priority in life. Well, I'm I'm cool with that. But if if I employed him, I wouldn't be right. I mean, I keep saying to Kyrie, if you want to just go pursue other other things in life that are far more important than just a little game of basketball, that's great by me. But if you're going to take Max or want Max money to play basketball, I think it has to be your primary focus, right? Yeah. Okay. So now I'm looking at what happened last year. They brought in Kyrie, and I don't know whose idea it was. Cubans or Jason kids, because I think Lucca or Lucca. But no, it wasn't Lucca. I'm talking about what happened in the fourth quarter. Oh, they made Kyrie the closer, right? Like, by far, they just said, you close the games. And Lucca appeared to me not to love it, right? Even though he never said anything publicly about it. Look what happened. They played. So that's 16 games. So 16 times they finished games fourth quarter, a couple of overtimes. But let's do fourth quarter and overtime. Would you believe in those games together? Kyrie attempted in the fourth quarter overtime 103 shots to Lucas 50 shots. He more than doubled his shot attempts down the stretch of these games. Right. But a lot of that's kept. You know, Lucca always started the fourth quarter on the bench, so he wouldn't come into like the nine minute mark, maybe eight and a half. So Kyrie is already three, probably three shots ahead of him by the time he actually get into the game. And if Kyrie has it going, Lucca is not going to interrupt that flow. So now at the end of the game, you look up and Kyrie got 13 shots and Lucca got five. OK. But I still don't love the direction of that. It didn't feel right to me. And I don't think Lucca loved the direction of that because they went five and 11 together and missed the playoffs. Well, to convince me of this happening, somebody is going to have to show me where LeBron can accomplish more in Dallas than he could stay and put in L.A. OK. All right. Now let's look at Kyrie's postseason production since he left LeBron post LeBron. OK. So he's only played in three postseasons. It's 22 total games. He has gone 11 and 11. But if you look at what happened that first year in Boston, remember, they went to the conference finals against LeBron. He got hurt. He was out. OK, so he misses 2018. Then 2019, they did sweep the Pacers. This is Boston to start off with. OK, fine. But then they lost to the Bucs in five games. Right. So not much to write home about there. That was it. So 2020, he missed. Right. He was out. So he didn't play in the playoffs. 2021, they did beat Boston in five games. This is with Brooklyn and Kevin Durant. Right, right. So they did that. But then he missed the final three games of that classic Bucs series. Right. They go seven games overtime at Brooklyn. Right. Well, Kyrie wasn't around for the rest of that. So they lost. Right. Durant had a great game five, a great game seven until the fourth quarter did not have a good fourth quarter hit the wall. All right. Then 2022, that next year at Brooklyn, they got swept by the Boston Celtics. And then they just missed the playoffs in Dallas. Look what I just gave you. I gave you six post potential post seasons. And in it, he's he's two and three in the series that he has played. Right. And never got to a conference finals. What does that say for Kyrie's career, his legacy or his recent legacy? It's not very good. He's kept it. Look, this is not a knock on Kyrie, but he's better as a second option than the lead. No. Okay. And that's not a knock. And there are some people that are just like that. Yeah. But he's not the guy that you like. Okay. He's our team leader. He's our guy. We're going to build around him. That's not what he is. Okay. And Kyrie has always demonstrated when he went to Boston and then Brooklyn that he's just not a leader of a team. Right. He's a leader of himself. Right. And he's going to go his sort of different and separate way. And he's had quotes even lately on one of the podcasts about how, you know, I couldn't figure out how to open up to people. So I just stayed inside myself. And remember that last year with LeBron, they said he was just completely removed and distant from the basketball. Well, sometimes you confuse or conflate what an actual leader is. Sometimes people think, well, I've been here for X amount of years. Yeah. Therefore, I'm the leader. Yeah. Since I've been in the NBA scale for eight years, I should be the leader on this team. I'm the elder statement. I'm one of the best players on the team. Therefore, I should be a leader. That's really not how leadership work. Now, if you're in a normal workplace, people might make you a leader. You've been on the job 15 years. You've been on the job 20 years. They'll make you the leader. But in a sports setting, it doesn't work like that. Okay. So my final takeaway from this is that Kyrie at 31 is looking sideways like, uh-oh, I'm losing value on the open market. So he is a complete free agent. Right. But he's sensing, sniffing that there's not going to be big plays for Kyrie Irving at this point in his career. Skip, I think he'll still get big dollars. I just don't know if he's going to get max money. Now, the only team that can give him that extra year are the Mavericks because that's five. Someone else can only offer four. But even if they offer four, can he get max money in that four-year deal? Or because it seemed like the Lakers were only willing to go two to three years. They were like, nah, we ain't really trying to go five because let's kind of tie towards LeBron. Yeah. We know LeBron we got this year, possibly next. That's two. If we do a three-year deal, maybe we only have Kyrie have to do Kyrie for only a year after LeBron's gone if he doesn't come back. I think that's the biggest thing what teams are skeptical of, Skip, tying themselves to Kyrie for five years. Okay. So it appears to me that Kyrie and company, his camp, they're all trying to re-up his stature, his aura by association with LeBron. So if you leak stories about, oh, Kyrie wants to. He asked LeBron, would he want to come to Dallas? Okay. Then by association, you re-up your fame, right? Yeah. You, you, you, you polish it and it's really not there because I'm sure somewhere right now, somewhere around here, we're not that far from where LeBron lives. He's, he's throwing up his hands saying, what is all this about? Man, LeBron just got up, walked over the double door, got in his bedroom and walked outside and look. Took a big, Ooh, that eucalyptus smell. Man, it smells good. And Dallas is already 317 degrees outside. He said, no, thank you. No, thank you. Well, so in the end, I hope this works out for Kyrie in Dallas, but the, the Lakers are not interested. And I don't think they'd be even interested in some discount from Kyrie. I think they want no part of Kyrie at this stage of his career. I think they feel very comfortable with the team that they have. Maybe add a few more pieces here and there, and they can get an entire camp with Rui in camp and Austin Reeves is definitely going to be in the starting lineup with LeBron and A.D. And maybe another piece around it. Does Rui go into the starting lineup? Is he still a, I think Skip, if you paid a man like he's going to be looking somewhere 15, $20 million, he'd probably go into the starting row. Okay. Well, he's earned that and he should start. And I think they found by the last couple of games of the year. Yeah. He's a starter. And he's only going to get better. He'll have more and more confidence. Hopefully Phil stays because there's a possibility he might leave and go, uh, Phoenix, but hopefully Phil stays because he's done an unbelievable job with Rui getting some loft on that shot and, and Austin Reeves. Yeah. He's been, Ooh, he's been something, something of a godsend for Austin Reeves. Hmm. Well, I never think, I never thought it would come to this for Kyrie, but in the end, I don't think really LeBron's that interested in playing with him again. Definitely not in Dallas. Not in Dallas. It is smokescreen season, gentlemen. That is undeniable. And let me add this. If you add up the salaries, just hypothetically of LeBron Kyrie at that max deal and Luca that is next year's salary cap. Yeah. So I don't know how Dallas would even make it work financially. All right. Skip, you are riding with the heat, but are odds makers disrespecting them plus the latest NFL news and a whole lot more. That's coming up next on Undisputed. 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