The Brooklyn Nets could end up being one of the league’s more aggressive teams once free agency rolls around this summer. Brooklyn is coming off of a strong 2018-19 campaign, plus the team is armed with more than enough cap space to go out and acquire a star on the market.
While this time of year is all about rumors, the Nets are a team that has popped up as a potential suitor for seemingly every big free agent. One such player is Kyrie Irving, and according to new reports, there’s mutual interest between the two sides in a potential pairing.
According to Anthony Puccio of SNY, the Nets would like to make a run at Irving, a New Jersey native whose camp has reportedly “kept a close eye on the Nets as the season progressed and the team got better, with the playoffs only helping their case.” This does beg the question of what would happen to D’Angelo Russell, Brooklyn’s dynamic young guard who is a restricted free agent once the summer rolls around, but the Nets apparently believe this pairing could work.
SNY also learned recently that the Nets would not shy away from signing Irving even if they re-sign point guard D’Angelo Russell. The ideal scenario would be to pair two max free agents, such as Kevin Durant and Irving, but sources say the Nets would be open to pairing Irving and Russell in the backcourt together.
Puccio isn’t the only person to report this. Brian Lewis of the New York Post also brought word that Brooklyn likes the sound of an Irving-Russell backcourt.
A source tells me that there are some within the #Nets organization that feel a D'Angelo Russell-Kyrie Irving pairing could work, that the two All-Star point guards could not only coexist but thrive. Story on the way.
— Brian Lewis (@NYPost_Lewis) May 25, 2019
It’s certainly a strange pairing — both guys are ball-dominant scoring guards who are at their best when an offense is being run through them, and putting two such players next to one another has the potential to go awry. But in the event Brooklyn went down this road and it worked out, Irving and Russell would give Brooklyn one of the league’s most dangerous and dynamic backcourts.
