Trade & FA 2023-24: Stein-Ingram Trade Inevitable| LAL Want Lebron Back On Any Terms

[Dundalis]

I say what I mean. I also didn’t say “best we could hope for”, I said “best we should hope for”. There is a difference with the change of words and I mostly choose my words carefully due to responses like this. 

I haven’t seen anything that has Cuban and Nico talking so flippantly about resigning Kyrie, can I get a source on that? Everything I see is eerily similar to what they said about Brunson last year. 

Following Cuban as long as we have, we know Kyrie’s being retained is his strongest need for the team. I believe his confidence in retaining Kyrie is what has helped him relax the reigns a bit (as FGump recently talked about) on micro managing things. 

I also believe keeping Kyrie is more important than you are making it out to be. No one is interested in Luka playing hero ball and wearing himself out at the end of the season yet again (well, maybe you are). 

I also am pretty much certain that the FO is not going into negotiations with the take it or leave it attitude you are expressing. Kyrie will have at least 1 other option going into the negotiations or his agent (mother) isn’t doing their job. We already know Hou is a possibility, there could be another team to emerge, never know. You may think, fine, let him go there. I have no doubt our FO does not share that sentiment.

Both Nico and Cuban clearly intimated they would love to resign Kyrie, but either said it's not Kyrie or bust (Cuban), then Nico stated on the radio that while they want to resign Kyrie, they have now brought in players that will work regardless of whether he comes back or not. You can treat these comments as nothing, but this is NOT what you see from a FO that is planning to ensure a star resigns at all costs (it's night and day compared to Cuban's definitive contract extension comments after trading for KP for example, before KP had even stepped on the court).

Luka wearing himself out has zero to do with how he's used (or at least much less than people keep harping on about) and everything to do with his conditioning. That's on him, no one else. Kyrie's TOP was not any greater than Dinwiddie's, or Brunson's before him. Luka has had guys take ball handling duties away from him well before Kyrie, and could have taken more off him, but HE wants the ball in his hands more often than not, no matter who's playing with him, Kyrie or otherwise.

At this point team success with Kyrie is purely assumed. Because the evidence is we had more success without him. Now I'm not saying Kyrie makes this team worse, but IMO a lot of what Kyrie does offensively is at least partially offset by the disadvantage of a small 6'2 guard defensively, and it has knock on effects. He also has off court issues that you simply can't ignore. We lock ourselves into a long term deal with Kyrie at our absolute peril IMO, his history is clear cut, the FO can think what they want, but the above comments give me hope they aren't going into the negotiations with absolute blinders on thinking that it's Kyrie or bust, because it simply isn't, and a WCF without him should at least be a partial indication of that.