Report: Nets were offered Russell Westbrook, picks for Kyrie Irving

Per Dave McMenamin of ESPN, the Brooklyn Nets received an interesting trade offer for Kyrie Irving from the Los Angeles Lakers last season.

The Brooklyn Nets are home for the summer after missing the chance to participate in the postseason in any capacity after their disappointing performance in the 2023-24 season. As Brooklyn, along with the rest of the NBA world, watches former Net Kyrie Irving try to win the 2024 NBA Finals, a new report has surfaced.

Per Dave McMenamin of ESPN, the Nets received an interesting trade offer from the Los Angeles Lakers for Irving when the relationship between him and Brooklyn broke down close to the trade deadline of the 2022-23 campaign. According to what his sources told McMenamin, the Lakers offered Russell Westbrook along with first-round picks in 2027 and 2029.

At the time, the Nets were trying to negotiate a contract extension with Irving given that he was in the final year of his deal. Brooklyn wanted to retain Irving to a long-term deal that Irving wanted, but only if the contract had certain stipulations tied to how much time Irving missed.

Irving did not want his contract to have any stipulations in it and when both sides couldn’t come to an agreement, he requested a trade on Feb. 3 of last season and was traded to the Dallas Mavericks less than two days later. Reports at the time suggested that Irving’s preferred destination was the Lakers so that he could reunite with LeBron James, but ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported shortly after the trade that Brooklyn preferred what Dallas had to offer.

On Feb. 5, 2023, the Nets traded Irving and Markieff Morris to the Mavericks for Spencer Dinwiddie, Dorian Finney-Smith, a 2029 unprotected first-round pick, and second-round picks in 2027 and 2029. One can wonder if the Lakers’ first-round picks in 2027 and 2029 would be more valuable than Dallas’ first-round pick in 2029, but that would have required Brooklyn to re-route Westbrook, whom the Lakers traded to the Utah Jazz just for him to be waived by the Jazz a little over a week later.

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