The Los Angeles Lakers have been identified as the frontrunner to land Kyrie Irving as the enigmatic star tries to find his way out of the Brooklyn Nets. Kyrie recently opted into the final year of his current deal with the Nets for next season, but this by no means guarantees that he's going to be suiting up for them in 2022-23.
ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski provided a recent update on the trade talks involving the Lakers and the Nets. According to Woj, there hasn't been much progress between the two teams in terms of finding an amenable deal to bring Kyrie to Hollywood:
“The Lakers have yet, I'm told, to be aggressive in trying to put a deal together to get [Kyrie] from Brooklyn. That may come, that may evolve with time. But so far right now, there's no traction really on deals with either Irving or Durant.”
This comes as a bit of a surprise considering how there have been reports pertaining to LeBron James' desire to reunite with his former teammate in LA. LeBron has reportedly been very interested in bringing Kyrie to the Lakers, but based on Woj's report, it doesn't sound like LA is operating with a great sense of urgency.
This could just be the Lakers attempting to use a bit of leverage here. They appear to be the only team in the NBA that has serious interest in Irving, and they could be using this to their advantage. Whether or not this sits well with The King is an altogether different matter, though.