Last Friday, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst reported that Kyrie Irving asked to be traded out of Cleveland two weeks ago due to the fact that he “wants to play in a situation where he can be more of a focal point and that he no longer wants to play alongside LeBron James” according to sources.
There are two ways to look at this, and neither reflects particularly well on the Cavs’ stars or the culture in Cleveland. If you choose to judge Irving’s comments in a vacuum, it seems that he wants to leave Cleveland because he’s tired of playing in James’s shadow, and no longer wants to be a team in which he isn’t the best player, regardless of anything else. Irving also likely believes that, true or not (it’s not true), he can lead a team to a title by himself, and is tired of waiting around for an opportunity to do so.
The other perspective is that Kyrie’s desire for a trade is more circumstantial; that he knows or believes LeBron is going to leave after next season, and for whatever reason isn’t interested in leading whatever’s left of the Cavs roster in 2019. Simply put, he’s getting out while he can, and has no interest in being the face of a franchise run by the egomaniacal Dan Gilbert, whose firing of GM David Griffin was the first domino to fall in the team’s disastrous offseason.
The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, but the situation in either case points to relationships that have deteriorated, and a culture where sacrificing for the greater good is no longer a top priority. Perhaps most telling is the fact that Kyrie has felt this way for quite sometime, with Windhorst mentioning on The Basketball Analogy podcast that Irving kicked around this idea after the previous season, on the heels of completing arguably the greatest upset in Finals history. Think about that. Shortly after experiencing the highest level of team success, Irving was at least contemplating breaking things up to start HIS own team.
It’s hard not to look at the situation in Cleveland and not contrast it with that of Golden State, where a team of stars have largely found success through individual sacrifices and being comfortable with sharing the spotlight. If we believe that Kyrie genuinely cares about being the focal point, he would’ve never okayed the signing of Durant were he in Steph Curry’s shoes last summer. Remember that Steph’s approval was a tipping point in Durant’s decision, with KD asking the two-time MVP point blank if this is what he really wanted. Curry understood the collective benefit, and welcomed Durant with open arms. A year later, they won a title. That doesn’t happen on a team led by Kyrie Irving.
Curry hasn’t been the only one. Andre Iguodala helped establish this culture of sacrifice by swallowing his pride at the beginning of the 2014 season, when he accepted a role off the bench from Steve Kerr, a head coach with zero games of experience. David Lee did the same when it became clear that Draymond Green was the team’s power forward of the future shortly after. Both players had a right to be upset, and demand either a larger role or to be moved to a place that could give it to them. Neither did, and again, each held an NBA trophy in their hands come June.
It should go without saying that Irving has a right to do whatever he wants, and push for whatever situation he believes is best for him. After all James is going to do the same exact thing next offseason, and Irving has no duty to stand pat during this possible lame duck campaign. But Irving could do this next offseason after giving it one last shot, and even if LeBron leaves he could then take the reigns as the focal point of the Cavaliers moving forward.
That’s not what he wants, and that’s fine. But the idea of punting a surefire shot at another appearance in the Finals because of a personal desire to be this generation’s Kobe, is exactly the type of thinking that the stars in Golden State have largely avoided. So far, it’s working out pretty well.