Los Angeles Lakers fans were hit with some pretty surprising news on Monday morning when it was reported that Kyrie Irving has interest in LeBron James joining him on the Dallas Mavericks next season.
In fact, it looks like Irving has already reached out to James to see if he has any interest in joining the Mavs.
James joining the Mavs would cause something of a seismic shift in the Western Conference. The Mavs would boast one of the most talented trios in recent memory made up of James, Irving and young superstar Luka Doncic.
While there is surely a lot of excitement about the report in Dallas today, former NBA star Gilbert Arenas is not nearly as enthused.
He personally took to social media to issue a plea to James, warning him not to join the Mavericks.
His reasoning was somewhat hilarious.
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Based on Arenas’ caption, it seems abundantly clear that he does not want him leaving the Lakers for the Mavericks.
Luckily for Arenas, and unfortunately for Irving and the Mavs, the team doesn’t really have much to work with when it comes to offering up a package that would get anywhere near James’ potential trade value.
The Mavs parted ways with a lot of valuable assets to land Irving prior to the trade deadline in the 2022-23 NBA season. Though the team surely hoped the move would help it go deep in the playoffs, it ended up having the opposite effect.
The Mavs performed horribly following in the latter stages of the 2022-23 regular season and missed out on the postseason altogether. They were just 8-12 with Irving on the floor.
Obviously, the expectations would be incredibly different if James were to somehow end up in Dallas next season.
Despite the fact that he’s going to turn 39 years old next season, he proved that he still can offer a team a lot when it matters most. After all, he played a major role in helping the Lakers advance all the way to the Western Conference Finals before running into the buzzsaw that is the Denver Nuggets.
Only time will tell if he’ll be trying to help another franchise win a title next season.
