The way the Lakers can bring Kyrie Irving to Los Angeles

The Lakers have a lot of questions going into the next season. Their biggest problem right now is that their roster is not good enough to compete with the top teams in the West. At least five teams are better than them, and they haven't tried to address this issue during this offseason. They have put all their cards on the table to get Kyrie Irving. However, it seems that the Nets are not interested in what the Purples and Gold can offer.

Many analysts believe that unless the Brooklyn Nets end up trading Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving is not going anywhere. Right now, the Lakers have a salary problem as they just offered a new contract to their most valuable player, LeBron, and they still have to pay for Westbrook's contract. The only way the Lakers can bring Kyrie is if they free up some salary space.According to Shams Charania from The Athletic’s, they need to do another trade that would facilitate Irving's arrival.

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"For the Lakers, the likely path to acquire Irving — and reunite him with LeBron James — would be Irving opting in to facilitate a trade, because the Lakers cannot realistically clear cap space to sign him themselves, and a sign-and-trade would trigger the hard cap, thus making acquiring Irving significantly more difficult,” Charania wrote as he explained why the Lakers might have problems signing Irving before the start of the offseason.

According to Charina, there's a way the Lakers can sign Kyrie Irving, but is not an easy one “If Irving would opt in, Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka would have to satisfy the collective bargaining agreement’s salary-matching rules, meaning if Irving’s $36.6 million was the only incoming salary, the Lakers could send anywhere from $29.3 million to $45.8 million to the Nets and/or a third team in a legal transaction.” he concluded.

Can the Lakers win more games this season?

The Lakers had a horrible record last season as they only won 33 games. They ended up missing the playoffs, finishing 11th in the West. Since LeBron joined the team, the Lakers have missed the playoffs twice and only ended up with more than 42 wins once.  This year it is possible that they can win more games, but it would depend on if LeBron and Davis can stay healthy for 60 games or more.