LA Clippers Should Look at Kyrie Irving
With news breaking that Kyrie Irving may have requested a trade, we explore why the LA Clippers should look to trade for the All-Star point guard.
According to a report from ESPN, Kyrie Irving wants out of Cleveland. Should the LA Clippers look at getting the point guard?
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For starters, the easiest way the Clippers could get Kyrie would be in a one for one swap of him and DeAndre Jordan. Cleveland would have to look hard at this deal since they would be receiving an All-Star who they could pair alongside both Kevin Love and LeBron James. Any other trade with the Clippers probably wouldn’t work for both money and lack of true assets to give to Cleveland.
In the West, most, if not all, elite teams have an elite point guard. Adding Kyrie Irving to the roster would give the Clippers another scorer to put alongside Blake Griffin and Danilo Gallinari. Kyrie could provide a lot of scoring and is great in the clutch, where Blake has seemingly struggled in the past.
The LA Clippers would lose a lot of defense if they were to trade DeAndre, but with the way the league is trending, an elite center is not as necessary as it is to have an elite point guard. Blake, Montrezl Harrell, Willie Reed and Brice Johnson could potentially be enough for the Clippers to afford to give up DJ.
If the Clippers were to get Kyrie, a potential starting line up would consist of:
Kyrie Irving/Patrick Beverly/Danlio Gallinari/Blake Griffin/Willie Reed
The bench unit would be:
Milos Teodosic/Austin Rivers/Sam Dekker/Brice Johnson/Montrezl Harrell.
It would be a risky move for the Clips’ to give up DeAndre, but he will be a free agent next season. The Clippers recently decided it wasn’t worth it to give Chris Paul a max, nor to pay J.J. Redick, so who’s to say they would give DJ everything he wants next season. Meanwhile, Kyrie is signed through 2020.
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It will be interesting to see where this story with Kyrie goes, so keep checking back here at Clipperholics for all your news and updates and make sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook!