How the Anthony Davis trade affects the Brooklyn Nets

A couple of days ago the consensus was that Kyrie Irving would become a member of the Brooklyn Nets next season. Now, it’s a bit more cloudy.

Anthony Davis was traded to the Lakers on Saturday and that trade has impacted several teams around the league not involved, and one of those teams is the Brooklyn Nets. One of the biggest name free agents this season is Kyrie Irving, and only a couple days ago most everyone was ready to write him off as a Brooklyn Net, but now thanks to the Anthony Davis trade, it’s more of a question.

Coming into the offseason, the teams Kyrie Irving was reportedly interested in were the Brooklyn Nets, New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers. One thing led to another, and it led to the Knicks likely being eliminated, which left two teams, the Nets, and Lakers. The Nets made a trade last week which cleared up enough cap space to bring back D’Angelo Russell and also sign Kyrie Irving to a max contract. With that plus the Boston Herald report that came out last week stating that Kyrie Irving was reportedly ‘prepared to sign with the Nets,’ many believed he would, in fact, play in Brooklyn.

However, what about that other team, the Los Angeles Lakers? They have arguably the greatest player of all time in LeBron James, whom Irving has already won a championship with and now they have one of the best big men in the league, Anthony Davis as well. To get Davis the Lakers had to give up all of their guards, and now their starting lineup looks a little something like this:

• Isaac Bonga
• Alex Caruso
• Kyle Kuzma
• LeBron James
• Anthony Davis

The last three on that list are very solid players who could likely win many games, but those other two wouldn’t start on 99% of teams around the league. Kyrie Irving, however, would turn that lineup into a lineup many would take to win the NBA Finals. With that, Irving to the Nets becomes much less of a no-brainer. On the surface, many would say, “Well Kyrie left Cleveland because of LeBron, so why would he want to go play with him again?”

He’d want to play with him again because he was ‘the guy’ in Boston and in his time with the Celtics, they didn’t get anywhere. They reached the Eastern Conference Finals in his first year and nearly beat the Cavaliers, but that was without Irving. Not only that, but all throughout the season reports continued to come in that Irving had realized that it’s tough to get these young guys to work together and care about the ultimate goal and there was even a report that Irving had called LeBron James for advice.

This being said, that fire has been put out, and if the timing were right, Irving would more than likely be prepared to play with LeBron James once again. Also, there have been multiple reports that Irving apparently wants to play with Anthony Davis. If that is the case, then he’d need to go to the Lakers, thus spurning the Nets.

However, is Brooklyn such a horrible place to be? The Nets have several players capable of holding their own including D’Angelo Russell, Jarrett Allen, Spencer Dinwiddie, Caris Levert, and a couple of others. Adding Kyrie Irving to this list would make for a serious contender in the East, which really makes you think they would have more of a shot to sign Irving, than many seem to believe.