Kyrie Irving Rumors: New Favorites Emerge For Guard Poised To Leave Celtics

Kyrie Irving was expected to re-sign with the Boston Celtics when the 2018-19 campaign got underway and any other possibilities were not even spoken about. But at the moment, the possibility of the point guard remaining with his current employers is slim at best with many expecting him to find a new team in the summer.

The Celtics point guard will enter free agency when he opts out of the final year of his deal and experts believe Irving will end his Celtics stay after enduring a frustrating campaign which had initially pegged them as the favorites to progress from the Eastern Conference. The New York Knicks were touted as the favorites but a new candidate has emerged at the front of the queue and it is a team based very close to Irving’s boyhood home in West Orange, New Jersey – the Brooklyn Nets.

The Knicks are said to be looking at Irving as the second superstar they want to sign after landing Kevin Durant their No.1 target in this summer’s free agency. But the Nets will have cap space to sign one big free agent this summer after making the playoffs with a team built around young talent.

Las Vegas bookmakers, however, do not see the Celtics or the Knicks as the frontrunners and have put the Nets at +250 to land Irving in the summer. Behind them comes the New York franchise with odds of +300 followed by the Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers.

Brad Stevens’ team are facing the prospect of being knocked out of the playoffs as they trail Milwaukee Bucks 3-1 in the Eastern Conference semifinals going into Game 5 on Wednesday night. It could be the last game Irving pays for the Celtics with many claiming that only a deep run in the post-season would have convinced the point guard to stay with the Boston franchise.

Former Celtics power forward Antoine Walker recently claimed that Irving will leave regardless of the outcome in the post-season. However, it could be argued that the point guard will have a better chance of winning the title with the Celtics rather than the Nets.

Moreover, if Irving’s frustrations did arise from leading a team of young stars rather than playing alongside genuine superstars like he did at Cleveland Cavaliers with LeBron James, he will have the same in Brooklyn, where he is likely to be the only All-Star leading a team of hopefuls, which is likely to give Celtics hope of convincing him to stay, especially since they can offer him the biggest contract among all the suitors.