Come on and you're listening to Heat Check from Trista Criek Odyssey's official NBA podcast, find out wherever you get your podcasts and live all throughout free agency, Summer League, and beyond. Exactly so, I said this in the pod that never was So did I even say it at all?
That's the question. Buckle up, folks.
We've now reached bizarro land.
As of yesterday afternoon.
According to numerous sources, the NETS gave Kyrie Irving permission to pursue sign and trade packages also to sign a free agency using.
The mid level taxpayer mid level exception.
And it appeared that unless the Nets paid him max money, he was out this bitch. However, turns out Kyrie did opt in to thirty six million dollar contract and blew up all the speculation about him and KD finding new homes.
By the way, Kyrie Irving is currently in.
North Dakota opting into his contract, looking at all the scenes and sights. But unless, of course, nothing has actually changed and Kyrie is still on the move, no one knows what's happening, folks. No one, not Woj, not Wendy, who like me, ended up scrapping his podcast as well. He recorded the full thing had to start all over again once Kyrie opted in.
Ain't that about a bitch? That's how it goes.
Not even Schaum's Sharanya, who has a direct line to Kyrie Irving, knows what's going on with Kyrie Irving.
I'm not even sure.
Truthfully, I'm not even sure that Kyrie knows where Kyrie is at.
You know, that's just so human.
You're just going through the decision tree and you're just like, I know it's not quite right where I am, but I also don't know if I go if it's quite right there either. So it's the evil you know versus the evil you don't know, and also a trip to North Dakota to embrace your roots.
I do know, however, how we got here one.
It started out not last season, but the season before, when Kyrie Irving went on walkabout and he got suspended because he went to his sister's birthday party, wore no mask to the event, went to Cynthia Nixon's Zoom Zoom activism situation, and at that point I spoke with my man Anthony Puccio, who was covering the nets, and he said, right then is when Josie said, I'm kind of tired with Kyrie Irving's antics. That was before the trade for Harden,
so that's kind of where Josi is at. He did the trade, said maybe Harden is a contingency plan if we are sick and tired of Kyrie Irving's antics, And then of course James Harden got sick and tired of Kyrie Irvings antics first, and so he was like, I am.
Out this bitch.
So Josi, Sean Marks, probably Steve Nash all thinking to themselves, this guy can handle the basketball unlike we've ever seen, but.
Is he worth it?
Is he worth this headache, this lack of culture, this bullshit we have to deal with. And then Josi publicly stated, yeah, I am in full support of us not paying Kyrie Irving the max.
I am all in on us not doing that.
Kyrie Irving offered, apparently the Nets a shorter term deal, how about like a two in one, And the Nets were like, how about a zero in one?
How about you just hopped in.
We are met to your lab that year and we can figure it out.
And then Sideways, Me and literally everyone in the NBA media.
Were like, is Kyrie Irving switching teams. The NBA off season went like it does, where literally the news cycle was like snorting a full line of cocaine. Everyone's just bouncing off the walls.
Not knowing anything.
Let me break it down calmly and rationally. Here's where we went, and here's where we go. Nets finalized and offer to Kai. What was in that offer is unknown. According to Zach Lowe, the Nets made a real offer to Kyrie Irving. We don't know the exact permutations. There's probably several, but this is not a case where it was a one year deal and that was it. It was offered real stuff. We don't know exactly what they are. Unquote, he called it a real offer. We do know he
probably and the Nets probably had provisions. Provisions are the keyword for him not playing full games, for him deciding to go to Cynthia Nixon's birthday party, and also activism campaign. We all know that Kyrie Iven doesn't play full season.
That's just never what. He's not done that since high school.
I don't even think Kyrie Irving played a full season in high school basketball in New Jersey. So Kyrie gave every indication he would only accept the Max deal in order to return to Brooklyn. But the new news, the current news, is that he wanted a shorter term deal at Max money, and that was probably a lie. Things began rolling downhill fast. Zach Low tweeted, the Max deal is not coming for Kyrie.
The Nets will not be.
Held hostage by the threat of Kyrie and then Kevin leaving. Brian Windhorse says, get the Nets are like all in on both gone and like we're not dealing with what we had last year. So if you guys both want to frolic along, then that's fine. We have Kevin Durant under a four year deal. We decide where he goes, and we decide what assets come back. You want to pull Ben Simmons, that's fine, But we know that Ben Simmons doesn't love basketball and you do, so you're not holding out like Ben Simmons.
We know that.
Kyrie then pulled the nuclear code, releasing a list of teams that he would prefer to be traded to Lakers, which we knew was gonna happen because Kyrie Irving went on some im athlete podcast and said if it wasn't for his ego, him.
And Lebron James will be playing basketball still together. And that was when I said.
Scooby, Scooby, is that what I think it is? Now? We're talking Lakers, Clippers, Snicks, Heat, MAVs, Sixers. Turns out, numerous reports from Jake Fisher, friend of show, there was only one team that was even remotely interested in Kyrie, and of course it was the Lakers.
What would the offer of Ben.
We don't know.
That's the big question.
If Kyrie left, we all began to wonder would Kevin Durant go as well. Sham's the ultimate shill of the man said, Kevin Durant is loyal to the Nets. He will not be going anywhere, and that is probably what It's probably a lie. He's not gonna be sitting there with a bunch of scrubs and no draft picks if you're a lottery team.
And then just like this, the NBA World exploded.
Nets Daily tweeted this, based on conversations this morning, I think that the Nets will be very active very soon, and not just on Kyrie.
I was told to quote unquote buckle up.
At this point, Kyrie had until Wednesday at five pm, which is tomorrow, to decide whether he was going to opt into his contract. All reports were that he was not going to chaos, of course, is in the streets. Two of the seventy five best players in the NBA right now, two of the seventy five best of all time, potentially going on the market at the same exact time. Exactly what is happening here?
No one knows.
Dame Lyott Lillard then photoshopped the photo of I don't know if he did it.
Himself, so don't quote me on him doing it himself.
I don't know that he owns photo shop on his computer, but i'ld be amazing. A photo emerged the Dame Lillard posted on his own Instagram story of Kevin Durant in the Portland Trailblazer's uniform alongside Dame. People are freaking out. Parody accounts began Fate quoting that KD wanted to come back to Golden State.
Shit is bananas b A na nas. Then Woes dropped a bomb.
If Irving declines his thirty six million dollar player option, he would be eligible to sign with the Lakers for the six million taxpayer mid level exception. Of course, he would probably sign this six million dollar MLLE with the agreement that he would get a max deal from the team the next year.
How serious was this chatter?
Christian Winfield New York Post reported that the belief among team and league execs and players is that Kyrie Irving was Deuce's peace up atown down.
Having only played.
One hundred and three games in three years, he has missed forty one point four percent of the possible games with the Nets with all teams excuse me, since twenty fifteen, that man is operating in a sixty percent clip. That is, in academia, what we call a failing grade.
If you're wondering how.
Scared the Nets might be about the prospect of losing KD, when Horse just reported the Nets would rather lose Kyrie and KD both and to go through hell that they went in with both of them together, and that bulls and that turmoil. In addition to this, the cooling between the Nets and KD was something to watch as well. Apparently the Nets fired Adam Harrington. Who is Adam Harrington? You might ask, why does he matter? He was Kevin Durant shooting coach back in Okase when Kevin Durant was
there before he went to the Warriors. Kevin Durant specifically asked for Adam Harrington to be an assistant coach of the Nets. He has now been recently fired, and Kevin Durant reportedly was weighing his options and his faith and interest in trust in the decision making in the Nets was starting to come under question. Incredible, and yet Kyrie Irving does opt in but does not tell the Nets he's opting in. He did not even alert them, just like he did not even alert them that he was
going there in the first place. Do you guys remember that Kyrie Irving chose the Nets without the Nets choosing him. Kyrie Iruving chose the Nets before the Nets offered him whatsoever. They just backed into a relationship. It's like if I went to the Oscars and then all of a sudden someone came up to me and they were like, Michael B. Jordan says, he wants to date you. He's got an offer, he's got a ring, And I'm like, well, I didn't
even know that. Uh, I didn't even know Wait, excuse me back this up a little bit.
So Michael, what wants to do?
What? Like?
That's the Nets with Kyrie River also though it's like Michael B.
Jordan's friend, He's also wants to marry you as well. It's like hold On, Kadi and Kyrie are both coming to the Nets.
We didn't even know. So that's a disaster.
On top of the fact the Nets don't have their own first round pick for the next five years.
All of their turmoil, all.
Of the chaos, all of the mediocrity spiraling, all of that does is build up the war chest for the Houston Rockets. And that is why Tielman for Tita made a billion dollars off of low end shrimp, because he is a man that understands business and understand how that assets work.
Here, I don't need any pieces for James. Don't worry about that. I don't want I don't want Ben Simmons that. No, I don't want Jared Allen that. Nohoh.
Just give me five first shround picks. Give me four first round picks and four pick swaps. How about that.
I'll take that.
I can see how things have worked out with you when you traded for Kevin Garnett and Paul Pearson.
Toron Williams. We'll just keep our ass over here.
We don't want these pieces that are not on the timeline of our young guns.
And then Kyrie had to go.
Ruining all of our chaos by doing this opt in, Like your fans were already planning their parade. Then they went into a probably they're in a coma right now. NBA media all had to scrap their podcasts, they had to scrap their articles, their think pieces. Bet MGM as well as other sports books had to maneuver their odds. And now we've got news that opting in makes it even more likely that Kyrie is on the move. So if you had to ask me what I think is going to happen, do it doesn't seem like I know?
Does it seem like I even have the foggiest idea what to make out of this?
Buckle up, folks, we're just can get started.
Its June thirtieth could not come back