Kyrie would be wise to not stick around a team that couldn't even make the playoffs despite trying to make an "all-in" push, and having little remaining assets to upgrade. With so much coaching turnover, it's hard to figure out what some new teams will look like next year. Could Milwaukee move on from longterm Buck Khris Middleton to bring in a true lead ballhandler next to Giannis and Jrue? Will the new Raptors head coach want to move away from their positional squad to a more traditional lineup? Will the Knicks find a way to bring in a superstar like they've wanted to for decades?

For my money, the Lakers make the most sense for Kyrie, but almost their whole team is expiring, which makes deals harder. Boston is obviously out of the question. Miami is not a culture fit at all, and they seem pretty good without him for now. Teams like the Timberwolves or Raptors make some sense on paper, but whether Kyrie would want to join such an unsettled situation remains to be seen. But what if he wanted to team up with the reigning MVP in Philly? For as oddly as the Brooklyn Nets superteam flamed out, the trio of Harden, KD, and Irving, still had an absurd rating of nearly +15 when they shared the floor, and re-forming it with an arguably even better fit in Embiid (who can make up for Harden and Irving's deficiencies on defense much better than KD) could take the team to even new heights.

Frankly, the main question for the 76ers is whether or not Harden will re-sign, and bringing in Irving doesn't exactly help there. It seems that Irving's "instability" was the main reason Harden asked out of Brooklyn in the first place. However, if he believed that the COVID mandates are a problem of the past, and that Irving will at least be available to play (even if he's a loose cannon off the court), then that might be enough for Harden to give one last chance at a ring instead of slinking back to Houston. A four-year max wouldn't hurt either, and if committing huge money to Irving and Harden is what Daryl Morey thinks it will take to be the best team next year, history has shown he'll do it. There's really not much to say about this deal from the 76ers perspective that isn't obvious. Irving is what everyone hopes Maxey will become in time, so this just speeds up the timeline and makes the 76ers better now. He could have excellent two-man chemistry with Embiid in the way that shooters like J.J. Redick and Seth Curry did, but that Maxey never seemed to fully master. Losing Maxey hurts of course, but moving their third guard for a guy that can start on the wing and actually give them a true shutdown defender in Mikal Bridges would be huge. Really though, what it boils down to is that James Harden doesn't seem to know how to be a second option. He is still capable of being an explosive first option, as he showed with two forty-point showings against the Celtics when it was clear that's what was needed from him, but he may not be able to sustain that for long stretches of time. He is happy being the most overqualified third option ever, as he was in Brooklyn, and which he slipped into at times against the Celtics. However, the 76ers certainly won't make him the first option as long as the reigning MVP is here, nor should they. That leaves the second option, and it means they need a true second option who's used to that role in a way Tobias Harris and Tyrese Maxey are not, and the guy that best fits the bill is Kyrie.

Mavericks fans will balk at this trade initially, as they will probably balk at any sign and trade that moves Kyrie for "less than he's worth" on the surface. It's important to remember that sign and trades rarely get the team sending the star very much in return. Kevin Durant got sign and traded to the Nets (with a first!) for D'Angelo Russell. Kemba Walker got S&Ted for Terry Rozier, and Jimmy Butler for Josh Richardson. Most of these trades were a top star in their prime for essentially a low-end starter. Kyrie is still good, but closer to Kemba than any of the others, so getting a very good starter and another role player in return is the kind of haul that one can roughly expect, especially when the alternative is losing them for nothing. It's pretty obvious now that the Kyrie trade was a mistake. The Mavericks have had success when they did essentially what the Harden Rockets did: surround their heliocentric star with switchable, gritty defenders, and let him create everything offensively. Having a second option that can play off-ball or occasionally carry the offense for stretches (like Jalen Brunson or Spencer Dinwiddie for the Mavs, or Chris Paul and Eric Gordon for the Rockets) is key. The mistake you don't want to make is getting rid of key defensive depth for another primary ballhandler that minimizes your main star. That's what the Rockets did when they traded away Clint Capela so they could accommodate Russell Westbrook, and within a year Russ was gone and Harden was asking out. The Mavs are surely bankrupt if they lose Irving (and Christian Wood) for nothing with no way to replace them, and Luka will be next to follow in Harden's footsteps... but if they can try and undo their error quickly, they might still have a chance. Tobias Harris has also struggled with a fluctuating role in Philly, but with a simpler job on the Clippers, he averaged 20-7-3 on 59.1% TS. If he can regain that form as the second (and occasionally first) option again, while also bringing much more size and defense on the wing next to Luka, he could at least be a better fit if not a better player than Kyrie. Joe Harris is getting older and had his role reduced last year, but he still shot 42.6% from deep on the same volume per-36 as he always has, so it's still clear the value he brings to a playoff team. If nothing else, both he and Tobias are expiring, so if things don't work out after one more year, they can fully reset with (or without) Luka, which can't be said if they were to try and resign Kyrie to a big deal and commit to a team construction that clearly hasn't worked.

The Nets are a hard team to figure out. They have more wings than they know what to do with, and they're good enough to not stink, but were the only team to get swept in round 1 of the playoffs, showing they're clearly not very GOOD either. Mikal Bridges has looked like a star since he got traded to the Nets, but do they worry he might have too much positional overlap with the rest of the team? Normally, you'd trade your supplemental players instead of the star, but are they even convinced Mikal is really a budding star and wasn't just on a 27 game heater? In this deal, they move him for a guy that looks to be a rising star guard in Tyrese Maxey, who was arguably the most consistent performer for the 76ers in the playoffs, and who averaged an impressive 29-3-6 on 57.5% true shooting when he was on the floor without Harden or Embiid. The Nets would probably prefer to get to team up Mikal and Tyrese together, but there might not be a way to convince the 76ers to take a deal that doesn't include Mikal. If the Nets think they're pretty similar, then swapping the two would make some sense, especially as it allows them to dump Harris's expiring deal as well. If they really wanteed to contend, they could even use the nearly $40 million they'd save to go after one of the bigger free agents like Khris Middleton, Fred VanVleet, or Kristaps Porzingis. A potential starting lineup of Spencer Dinwiddie, Maxey, Middleton, Cameron Johnson, Nic Claxton could have a ton of offensive firepower and would really be balanced across the board. Strong bench depth with Royce O'Neale, Dorian Finney-Smith, Seth Curry, Patty Mills, and more could round out a strong core moving forward that would still have all their assets from the Harden and KD trades if they wanted to turn some of those depth pieces (or Ben Simmons's contract) into a third star.

All in all, Kyrie could ask for the Mavs' help to sign and trade him somewhere if he wants to leave, and they could certainly do worse than getting two solid wings back. If that team he wants to go to is the 76ers, they might need to move Maxey to a third team who has a good young wing they'd be willing to mvoe back, and that team just might be the Nets.