NBA Rumors: Celtics, Knicks Had ‘Tangible’ Kyrie-Porziņģis Trade Talks in 2019

Kyrie Irving’s Dallas Mavericks will face Kristaps Porziņģis’ Boston Celtics in the upcoming NBA Finals. But the two stars were reportedly almost traded for each other back in Jan. 2019.

According to Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports, “when New York’s front office began to quietly pursue deals to move on from Porziņģis, the Celtics and Knicks even held tangible dialogue about swapping Irving for the 7’2″ sharpshooter, league sources told Yahoo Sports, before the Mavericks swooped in and sent a package headlined by two first-round picks to New York.”

Indeed, it was Porziņģis who ended up in Dallas at the time and Irving signed in Brooklyn that summer alongside Kevin Durant, as the pair spurned the Knicks.

Neither one of those situations played out well. Porziņģis and Luka Dončić never quite found a rhythm together, and the former was eventually traded to the basketball purgatory that is the Washington Wizards ahead of the 2022 trade deadline.

Irving’s time in Brooklyn, meanwhile, went from enormous hype—which was only compounded when the team also traded for James Harden—to abject disaster, as the star-studded Nets won just one playoff series together and Irving was largely the subject of controversy and distraction rather than superstardom.

But each has found a better situation since.

While Porziņģis has been injured for much of the postseason, he’s fit in nicely alongside Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Jrue Holiday, Derrick White and Al Horford, giving the Celtics the most talent-loaded roster in the sport. His ability to both stretch the floor offensively and protect the rim on the other end has given the Celtics a new dimension.

Irving, meanwhile, has been a model citizen in Dallas, combining with Dončić to give the Mavericks the best backcourt in basketball (and certainly the most clutch). His ability to play off the ball while Dončić serves as the primary playmaker has made the duo an ideal pairing, similar to how he operated alongside LeBron James back in the Cleveland days.

That has set up a fascinating NBA Finals matchup, with Irving and Porziņģis—two men nearly traded for each other years ago—expected to play a major role in the result.