For each Los Angeles Lakers home game, four courtside seats are available inside Crypto.com Arena. It’s not a simple effort to secure a pair of them for any game. They are an investment, not a luxury, for corporations. They are the ultimate status symbol for celebrities. Without a purpose, no one takes the necessary steps to secure them.
That’s why, prior to Game 6 of the Lakers’ first-round playoff series against the Memphis Grizzlies, so many heads turned and cellphone cameras clicked. The date was 28 April 2023. With a three-game lead, the Lakers were hoping to make it past the opening round for the first time since their 2020 championship run in the Orlando bubble. There was an electrifying vibe. Even the 86-year-old Jack Nicholson, who has been seated courtside since the 1970s, made a rare public appearance.
A man in a chic black-and-white shirt headed toward two courtside seats across from the Lakers bench minutes before tipoff. And people soon became aware of his existence. Kyrie Irving did it.
LeBron James of the Lakers approached his old teammate during pregame warmups, gave him a hug and a dapper handshake that they had developed in Cleveland.
Irving had an open schedule following the Dallas Mavericks’ failure to qualify for the postseason. He spends the winter in Los Angeles. However, Irving was also set to become a free agent, and he was keen to work with James again, with whom he had shared an NBA title as a Cavalier, either in Dallas or Los Angeles, according to people close to him.
According to people close to Irving, he was there to deliver that exact message.
According to reports, the Lakers have been debating whether to pursue Irving through free agency or trade for almost a year. Since June 2022, when Irving and the Brooklyn Nets were unable to reach a long-term contract agreement, they had called the team multiple times to express interest in trading for him. They evaluated the benefits of the still-prodigious point guard’s talent and his clear fit with James and Anthony Davis against the risks of making an investment in the volatile and frequently contentious player.
According to sources, James was receptive to the concept but cautious not to take any action that would be interpreted as a push at a time when the organization was still working to recover from the disastrous experiment involving Russell Westbrook.
Three weeks later, Irving was back, this time for Game 4 of the Western Conference finals against the Denver Nuggets, the eventual NBA champions, which the Lakers would lose in a sweep.
But by then, it was irrelevant for the Lakers to have pursued Irving. The Mavericks were determined to stick with their tandem of Luka Doncic and Bird. And the Lakers had just finished an unexpected Western Conference run. Thus, within hours of free agency opening, Irving signed a three-year, $126 million contract extension with the Mavs. Meanwhile, the Lakers focused on maintaining stability and increasing their lead, keeping hold of their own free agents, Rui Hachimura and Austin Reaves, and adding guard Gabe Vincent from the Miami Heat.
The Lakers were praised at the time for their astute offseason strategy. For their courage in sticking with the winning combination they had created at the trade deadline. for taking the Westbrook experiment to heart and applying it to team building instead of star chasing.
The team debated internally whether they could move quickly enough to match the quick-witted players in the Western Conference, but in the end, according to sources, they concluded it wasn’t a problem that needed to be addressed just yet.
Seven months later, with the trade deadline only twenty-three days away, Davis and a healthy James, forty-nine, playing as well as they have ever together, the impact of that decision is still felt in every loss, in every murmur of annoyance over inconsistent lineups, and in every game where the Lakers are outscored or run off the court.
For his part, Irving has stayed clear of the off-court mishaps that marred his tenure in Brooklyn and made teams hesitate to make a long-term commitment to him. Leading the Mavericks (24-17) into Wednesday’s game (ABC, 8:30 p.m. ET) against the Lakers (20-21), he has reclaimed his reputation as one of the best point guards in the NBA. James and company, on the other hand, have struggled to find consistent point guard play throughout the season and are only one game better than they were at this point last year.
“I don’t think I blame [the Lakers] for what they did,” an ESPN interview with a Western Conference official said. “Kyrie hadn’t demonstrated his stability as he has this season. And because he just makes everything work, LeBron is not just the player who gives an organization the greatest life, but he is also the ultimate force multiplier who completely makes you feel better than you are.”