Dahntay Jones says not to give up on the Cleveland Cavaliers‘ core group just yet. The journeyman who played with LeBron James and Kyrie Irving the last two seasons says the pair don’t really have to break up after Irving’s trade request this summer.
Jones was on Sirius XM’s NBA channel and said in an interview that he isn’t so sure that James and Irving can’t reconcile their relationship to the point where the two can play on the same team again and he also isn’t buying reports James has already made a decision about next summer.
“He wants to win so bad that to look forward a year wouldn’t be in his personality,” Jones said about James already thinking about free agency in 2018. As for the relationship between Irving and James, Jones had no reason to believe their differences were irreparable or that the locker room felt any different from a typical locker room in the league last season.
“I think that a lot of it is overblown,” Jones said. In being in the NBA for 13, 14 years, I’ve seen real tension. That’s not tension. In your workplace when it’s highly competitive and you have guys who are at the top of their craft, you have creative differences sometimes. … Nothing happened out of the ordinary other than regular NBA basketball. There’s no tension, not guys walking around not speaking to each other.”
As for whether the two could patch things up and move forward as teammates, Jones firmly believes that could happen with a pretty simple conversation.
“It’s definitely possible in my opinion,” Jones said. “Those two are at the top of our league. And they can work together and do anything and accomplish anything as they’ve shown you in the past. Nothing’s to the point where it cannot be mended or fixed or if there’s a difference of opinion or if guys have any grievances. Anything can be fixed in this league. Anybody can work together. Anybody can make anything happen. So, I do think if there was one to be fixed with a small conversation.”
Jones has some skin in this game, of course, as he obviously wants to keep the Cavaliers together so LeBron can pay his fines again if he re-signs with the team.
But more than that, a reconciliation of sorts might be necessary anyway. The Cavaliers have yet to find a trade that works for Irving, and the situation is further complicated by the fact that James might not be playing in Cleveland after next season, either. If the Cavs can’t find a trade before the season starts, Irving will have to coexist with James for at least a few months.
Trade options for Irving open up a bit in the middle of December, but that’s a long time to begrudgingly play basketball. Maybe Jones is right and the two can get along because, honestly, they might have to.
