Before free agency could bring any sort of excitement, Kevin Durant and the Brooklyn Nets provided all the excitement with his trade request that flipped the franchise on its head. One of the biggest ripples of that move was the revival of Kyrie Irving to the Lakers, a move that looked dead in the water earlier this week after he opted into the final year of his contract.
So, as free agency was playing out and the Lakers were signing Lonnie Walker IV and Damian Jones and Juan Tuscano-Anderson, all of it was being done with Kyrie hanging over them in the background.