LeBron James on Kyrie Irving Trade News: Cavaliers Star Says He 'Reached Out' to Former Teammate
The Cleveland Cavaliers had a media day on Monday, Sep. 25, and the media took the chance to ask LeBron James about the situation with former teammate Kyrie Irving. The league's top forward obliged, as he shared his thoughts on what could have been.
The deal to trade of Kyrie Irving away from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Boston Celtics is done and closed, and there's little else to do for former teammate LeBron James other than prepare for the upcoming NBA season.
A chance to look back did present itself on the Cavalier's media day in Independence, Ohio to take one look back before going back to work, as covered by Cleveland.com. Right from the start of his 40-minute interview, the star forward tackled the elephant in the room. "Let's do the Kyrie thing," LeBron said.
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"I reached out to him because I just wanted to get a little insight on why he felt like he wanted to move on," James said, referring to Kyrie Irving. "He basically just let me know that that was the direction that he wanted to go in. And I was OK with that. And it's a business. I understand that," he explained.
It was not as easy as he described it, he admitted. "I had a ton of emotions," James said. When asked if there was something he could have done to convince Irving to stay, James expressed that he thinks it's just between the two of them now, should they ever come to talk about it.
The former teammates won't have long to wait for that chance, as they meet again in the first game of the regular season on Oct. 17 at Cleveland.
The video below is part of the interview that LeBron James gave during the team's media day conference, where he touched on a lot of topics including the trade of former teammate Kyrie Irving.
The NBA preseason starts on Saturday, Sep. 30, followed by the regular season opening day when Kyrie Irving and the Celtics visit LeBron and the Cavaliers on Tuesday, Oct. 17 at the Quicken Loans Arena.
