LeBron James Asked Cavaliers Not To Trade Kyrie Irving, Reveals Midseason Doubts

LeBron James revealed he asked the Cleveland Cavaliers management not to trade Kyrie Irving last year before the point guard eventually moved to the Boston Celtics.

James and Irving formed an effective partnership ever since the former returned to the franchise in 2014 as they helped the Cavaliers to a historic first-ever NBA championship when they came back from 3-1 down to defeat the Golden State Warriors 4-3 in the 2016 Finals.

A year later however, the Warriors, strengthened with the mega signing of Kevin Durant, almost swept the Cleveland side, winning the series 4-1 as well as a second championship in three years.

Following the 2017 season, Irving surprisingly asked to be traded as he ended up moving to Cleveland's Eastern Conference rivals in the Celtics as the 26-year-old preferred to be the focal point of the team.

Much was made about why he decided to leave with many speculating there may have been a strained relationship between the pair while former Cleveland Cavaliers general manager David Griffin recently claimed James did not need Irving's help.

But James revealed for the first time in an exclusive interview with ESPN Wednesday that he, in fact, called the higher-ups and told them not to trade their superstar point guard away as he reflected on the Cavaliers making the NBA Finals this year despite the circumstances of their regular season.

"Even if you start back to the summertime where I felt like it was just bad for our franchise just to be able to trade away our superstar point guard," James elaborated. "A guy that I had been in so many battles with over the last three years and obviously I wasn't a part of the communications and know exactly what went on between the two sides. But I just felt like it was bad timing for our team."

"So I felt like the odds were against us from the summer. And then you know we come into the season and our All-Star point guard that we got from Boston [Isaiah Thomas] wasn't able to play until January. We just had so many things going with our team. We shuffled in different lineups, we shuffled in different players, we made a trade at the deadline, and I can't sit here right now and say that the Finals was a part of my thinking," he said.

Irving's Celtics finished above the Cavaliers in the regular season but he ended up missing the playoffs due to surgery on his knee.

In his absence, James inspired the Cavaliers to a Game 7 win over the Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals last week and helped his side make a fourth consecutive NBA Finals appearance where they will once again meet the Golden State Warriors.

But as the 33-year-old admitted, there were midseason doubts about whether the Cavaliers would even make the playoffs, especially when they were going through a rough patch from December to January where they lost nine of 12 games with James underperforming as well.

"I was like, 'OK, I am not quite sure what we are going to do with this ball club; we are not playing good basketball,' but you can't sell yourself short," James explained. "You have so many people looking up to you, you have so many kids to inspire and you, yourself, you have always talked about be as great as you can be every day, so I kind of hit that switch before the trade deadline."

Game 1 of the NBA Finals will begin Thursday night at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California.