Los Angeles Lakers

The Los Angeles Lakers have been searching high and low when it comes to upgrading their roster. After going 33-49 last season and not even qualifying for the NBA Play-In Tournament, the team is in need of some major changes.

As long as LeBron James and Anthony Davis are on the roster, they will have a chance to compete every night. However, if they want to reach the level of contenders again, they need to upgrade the players around them.

Los Angeles was hoping one of those upgrades would be Kyrie Irving. They have been attempting to acquire him in a trade for weeks but the Nets have been unwilling to make a trade. The Lakers even made their 2027 and 2029 first-round picks available, something they had been unwilling to do previously, yet that still didn’t entice Brooklyn.

Now we know why the Nets weren’t engaging in trade talks and that is because they were working hard to keep Durant. Keeping Irving could have been a selling point in that and with both committed to the Nets, it means Irving won’t be heading to the purple and gold any time soon.

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While things could change during the regular season as a lot of this is fluid, right now, the Los Angeles Lakers will have to look elsewhere to upgrade their roster. The Indiana Pacers, Houston Rockets and Utah Jazz are teams they have been linked to and could engage in trade talks again.

However, none of those teams have a player of Irving’s caliber that will be made available in a deal with Los Angeles.