All-Star guard Kyrie Irving has requested a trade from the Brooklyn Nets, according to ESPN and The Athletic.
Irving made the request after talks about a new contract were not to his liking, news outlets reported Friday.
The NBA trade deadline is Thursday. The Nets, coming off a 43-point loss at Boston on Wednesday, open a five-game homestand on Saturday against Washington. They play six of their last seven games before the All-Star break at home; the only “visit” game in that stretch is the New York Knicks.
But whether Irving will be a part of any of that is unclear right now.
Irving’s agent and stepmother, Shetellia Irving, told Bleacher Report last week that she had reached out to the Nets regarding an extension. Kyrie Irving, whose current contract with the Nets expires after this season, is eligible for a four-year contract worth up to $200 million.
“I have reached out to the Nets regarding this,” Shetellia Irving told Bleacher Report. “We have not had meaningful conversations to date. The desire is to make Brooklyn their home, with the right kind of stretch, which means the ball is in the Nets’ court to communicate now if their desire is the same.”
A tweet was posted on Irving’s account shortly before the first reports of the trade request came out; as is often the case with Irving when it comes to social media posts, he wasn’t sure what exactly he was referring to in that post.
Brooklyn is 31-20 this season, fourth in the Eastern Conference standings entering Friday, and is 4-7 since fellow All-Star Kevin Durant hurt his knee in a game in Miami on the 8th. from January. Durant could return during this homestand, as he’s on record saying he wants to play in the All-Star Game on February 19, so presumably he’ll be back with the Nets before then.
Durant had also asked the Nets for a trade last summer, before a cool head took hold. And it was at this time last year that Brooklyn traded James Harden, who was part of what the Nets thought would be a Big Three of him, Durant and Irving, to the Philadelphia 76ers in a deal that brought Ben Simmons to Brooklyn. .
Whatever happens between now and Thursday, this is officially the start of another new saga surrounding Irving.
He was suspended by the Nets for what became eight games earlier this season after the team said it was dismayed by his repeated failure to “unequivocally say he has no anti-Semitic beliefs.” That came shortly after Irving refused to issue the apology that NBA commissioner Adam Silver sought for posting a link to an anti-Semitic piece of work on his Twitter account. Irving also ended up breaking his relationship with Nike as part of the massive fallout from what he tweeted and the backlash that followed.
“I don’t stand for anything like hate speech or anti-Semitism or anything that goes against the human race,” Irving said the day the Nets reinstated him in November.
Irving also missed much of the 2021-22 season due to his refusal to get vaccinated against COVID-19, essentially leaving him ineligible to play in Brooklyn home games for much of the season due to league rules. New York City established in response to the pandemic
He has also expressed many controversial opinions during his career, including repeatedly questioning whether the Earth was round before apologizing to science teachers.