The idea of trade winds has been around for some time. If you’ve spent time at sea or hang with people with a nautical bent you’ll hear them bring them up on occasion. In case you’re wondering what they are: The trade winds are winds that reliably blow east to west just north and south of the equator. The winds help ships travel west, and they can also steer storms such as hurricanes, too. Stuck at sea? Head towards the equator and build some speed up, find some winds to ride and get back in sight of land. For all intents and purposes, the Lakers are currently stuck at sea and good trade wind may be the only way to regain momentum with the current crew.

1. The Perfect Storm. The big thing online these days is to dissect the myriad of ways the Lakers could acquire Kyrie Irving and some other players at the cost of Russell Westbrook and…and uh, well, that there’s the current conundrum. Hurricanes Lakers, Nets, Russell and Kyrie have not combined to form the perfect storm yet. Sometimes tropical storm Spurs get tossed out there as a potential catalyst but I ain’t buying that one. In fact it’s actually more like All Quiet on the Western Front with nothing but false radar blips and sonar pings in the form of media heads filling the time and space between now and the start of camp with the best TV the NBA has to offer this time of year: Laker drama at 6 followed by our T.G.I.F. line up of “What’s LeBron Doing?” at 7, “Look Where Russell Is Sitting” at 8 and “Look Kyrie Said Something at the Spark Game!!!” at 9 followed by the Late Show with host Anthony Davis. People call the week or so between the end of the playoffs and the draft the Dog Days of summer but, for me at least, this is the Dog Days. No real information, people who are paid to talk doing just that with nary a real fact to report and Lakers fans reeking of almost as much desperation as Rob clinging to every post or report. It’s enough to make a man watch Snowflake Mountain.
2. When the wind dies down. Sending Kyrie to the Lakers is really the only option they have besides keeping him on the roster and forcing his hand. If the Nets can’t find a suitable trade for Durant this option becomes a lot more viable since Durant has indicated that he would love to keep the wacky-ass partnership he has going with Irving alive on some other sucker, er, team. Why? Who knows and, frankly, who cares. The fact that Durant feels that way is enough for the Nets to keep the band together until camp comes around and let those two figure out what they want to do. Without KD and Irving it feels unlikely that the Nets will compete this season. That could change if they can convince Phoenix or Miami to part with an All Star…which also feels unlikely. To date the Nets have indicated that a Kyrie deal will happen after a Durant deal which doesn’t feel imminent. In fact all the noise around that topic has died down to barely a whisper, enough to make the water ripple but not enough to push the boat through the sea. I don’t think a Kyrie trade happens at all if the Nets can’t find a trade they like for Kevin.
3. The doldrums are a real thing. As reliable as a trade wind can be there is, like in all things, a flip side to that phenomena. It’s called The Doldrums. The doldrums is a popular nautical term that refers to the belt around the Earth near the equator where sailing ships sometimes get stuck on windless waters. That’s where all parties involved are right now. Teams like Minnesota have rejected giving up 2 young stars (KAT and AE) and a grip ton of draft picks. There is no movement on the Phoenix or Miami front. The hilarious Golden State connection is DOA. In short, that ship isn’t going anywhere and is looking for a breath of fresh wind to fill the sails. Could that be a Kyrie Irving three team trade that ends up giving Brooklyn and large Traded Player Exception that could be used to offload a bad deal or two to help convince a team like Miami to part with Bam or Phoenix to part with Booker or Minny to part with newly extended Kat? No. I don’t think so. I’ve looked over what that involves and neither the Lakers or Nets have the draft assets, currently, to make that feasibly entice a team like San Antonio to do them a favor. So until the asking price for Durant goes down he is staying a Net.
4. Would the Nets just trade Kyrie and change for Russell? Personally I don’t see that happening for the following reasons: I think the Nets believe that they can bring Kevin back into the fold by not trading Kyrie and that they can get both guys on something akin to the same page with the organization. The Nets have bent over backwards to accommodate both men and they have continued to fill out the roster with useful role-players. Moves that remind me how the Lakers responded when Kobe demanded to be traded. They never once publicly said they wouldn’t do it but nor did they panic and take the first bad deal that came down the pike. The fact that both Durant and Bryant seemed to think they could be traded for players that weren’t All Stars and just bit guys and draft picks speaks to how out of touch with reality Durant is in this moment. The Nets might not get Booker but they won’t settle for an extended Ayton. The Nets might not get Jimmy but they won’t settle for an extended/hard-capping Herro. So on and so forth. The sticking point on the Lakers end seems to be utterly bailing on the rest of the decade and why that could, maybe just possibly, be a bad thing to do. Especially with the following facts in hand: COVID will get worse in winter which may very well lead states like California to require proof of vaccination in order to attend, engage in or be a part of indoor events. At that point Kyrie is about as valuable as The Maltese Falcon. Everyone assumes LeBron can reign in Kyrie, including LeBron. No offense but we saw how well that worked last season dude. James doesn’t have the pull or voice he once did, he couldn’t communicate with Russ in any meaningful way and still doesn’t seem to have. Does anyone really believe that Russ is more stubborn than Kyrie is? I don’t, at best they are the same level of self before others, at worse Kyrie is more stubborn as we have seen him willing to miss playoff games in the name of standing up for the little guy. Which he’s doing great at, by the way.
5. Any way the wind blows, doesn’t really matter to me…to me. If this is mostly about keeping LeBron James happy than the calculus is jacked. LeBron is as fickle as they in regards to whom is on the team. The one thing that has been proven to me is that LeBron is good at a whole heckuva lot of things. Team building isn’t one of them. It’s why Cleveland lost it’s luster to him early on, they cowed to his every whim. It’s why he chose Miami because, somewhere inside of him, he realized he functions best in an organized and structured environment with a clear line of command. He went back to Cleveland to finish a job and he came here because it’s a matter of both convenience and mutual goals. He came because of the legacy and the history, not because the Laker front office are masters of, well, anything at all but leaking bad information for no advantageous reason whatsoever. He will move on, like all mercs do, when the goals diverge or the convenience becomes something else. He is not, and has never been, a Laker Lifer. I’m sure he’ll do the little Spectrum shows, do a top ten LeBron Laker moments, so on so forth. He’ll pass Laker Legends in a Laker uniform and that’s kind of cool but it also feels kind of calculated and, honestly, a little pre-meditated which pisses me off a little. Kobe played himself into the ground wearing that jersey, Magic had to be stricken by a deadly illness and still came back for more. LeBron? Well, if one is honest, he’s doing exactly what he can do right now which is wait until 8/4/2022 to say or do anything regarding his extension. So final judgement can wait a couple weeks. Still, I can’t let myself put LeBron in anywhere near the same category as the other all time Laker greats I just mentioned, I don’t even put him at Pau Gasol level, yet. Pau got traded, for wee and fragile Chris Paul who is unlikely to ever win a ring at this point, because some brainiac in the front office thought the ball dominant superstar who never gave the ball up to anybody would totally give the ball up to CP3 thus breaking up potentially the last, great Laker dynasty. How did Pau respond? He was, as he has always been, a pro about it. Called it unfortunate, said he wanted to stay a Laker, and played the season out Can’t say I believe that team had another ring in them but you never know and now we never will. Anyhow, point of all that here on #5 is we need to prepare for a post-LeBron world and nobody should really want Kyrie here unless he takes a pay cut and has a contract with games played performance clauses. If someone doesn’t show up to work (and let’s remember Kyrie averages 55 games/season and a lot of those aren’t due to any injuries at all nor exclusively COVID related) they’re about as useful as the office chair their ass should be sitting in.

Saturday has come and gone, summer league ends tomorrow, so when Mr. Sun comes up on Monday morning and there is no Kyrie trade it’ll just set off a different wave of absurdity and nonsense. “We saw them at the place, they talked and smiled, WOJ WAS THERE!!!” and other forms of boring malarkey. You can bet I’ll be tuning it out because it’s empty-headed nonsense brought to life for the sole purpose of occupying space and time. Rob should continue to try and leverage the Brooklyn situation to pressure a team like Indy to make a deal for THT and Nunn, sans draft picks if he can, and then batten down the hatches and prepare for a squall. The truth is even that kind of deal feels pretty farfetched at this point. Starting to feel like this is the team rolling into next season to me.

OK, here it is. Funny in that I had started this prior to the podcast where Marc Stein floated the same theory. Scary because that means there is more than a kernel of truth. Sad because this is the current state of Laker Nation. We have reached the Waiting on Kyrie Zone.

1. Don’t get it wrong, this ain’t no miracle for the Lakers or their fans. This is, in my opinion, bringing a player less reliable than Russell is. Oh, it’s Thursday before a lobster boil in Kansas? Sorry guys, can’t make the game. Random social justice cause that I can Tweet about but actually do very little? Gonna need a week of personal time with full pay to get through it. The Earth is flat, nah just kidding I know it’s round I just use my platform for bullshyte. That is the maturity and character of the person the Lakers now seem to be focusing far too much attention on. Give me Russ over Kyrie all day, every day from now until the end of time. Kyrie is a joke, not a serious basketball player.
2. Ok, ok, got that outta my system…kinda. On the court Irving is a far superior fit alongside AD and LeBron than Russ is. Kyrie can shoot, is as able a distributor and has maybe the best handle in the game today. It’s the baggage…so very much baggage. It threatens to suck anything that comes into it’s orbit into an absurdist pit of wackiness without end. You want to challenge your new coach? Throw that mess on his plate and walk away.
3. Ok, ok…ok. Now I really have gotten that out of my system. There aren’t many paths for Irving to become a Laker. The first is the least likely which is straight trade with the Nets. Russ at $47,063,478 and Kyrie at $36,503,300 means there is too large a gap and the Nets have to send another player or few. Seth Curry at $8,496,653 just about does it and certainly does if you throw in Kessler (who?) Edwards at $1,563,518. There are other permutations that can be juggled but the real issue is the Nets have signaled they do not want anything to do with Westbrook. This route feels DOA.
4. Multi team trade. What this really should read is three team trade with OKC, Brooklyn and LA. No other team has the cap space or the inclination to hoard draft picks like the Thunder do. Are there other teams with the requisite cap space, or clearable cap space? Sure, but those aren’t realistic options, IMO. Real hard for me seeing OKC doing the Lakers a favor, of course the cost would be the last two tradeable draft picks in our stockpile, maybe Reaves to boot. The one thing this path would do is open up the door to adding THT and Nunn into the deal and getting below the tax apron thus opening up better spending tools. Still, hard for me to see this one happening in so short of time.
5. Everyone’s dream team. Irving opts out and signs with LA for the MLE. Big 4 of Russ, Kyrie, LeBron and AD. The stuff nightmares are made of. For Laker fans. Who would get the ball? Who would be the worst defender? How often would Kyrie play when paid so little? Still, in all reality, this path seems the most likely to me for Irving to wind up in the purple and gold. The fit would be…interesting. Certainly would give the Lakers another ball handler and some shooting to maybe open up the floor a little but it really just looks and feels like too many cooks in the kitchen. Unless it’s a race to see who plays in fewer games: Davis or Irving (Irving would get my bet).

All in all, it’s a small chance but a real one. No GM is likely to want to do either Kyrie or the Lakers any favors. The Lakers would be insane if they gave Kyrie a multi-year extension since it’s all but guaranteed he’ll miss large portions of every season (currently averaging 55 games/season and at 30 years old he won’t be getting any healthier), at least without a trial season on the MLE…where he will likely miss a boatload of games to pout about how little he is being paid. The talent is undeniable, and so is the petulant attitude and lack of seriousness when it comes to being a pro athlete. He should come with a warning: buyer beware, player likely to throw a pique and be out of contact for stretches of the season. But it is the Lakers so anything is possible.