The blissful radio silence about Kyrie Irving's future came to a rather abrupt end on Monday. The problematic point guard hasn't played a game in more than a month after he got shut down near the end of the season so the Dallas Mavericks could maneuver their way out of the play-in tournament and into the lottery. Brian Windhorst has been talking about Irving's impending free agency for the last two days and broke down how the Los Angeles Lakers, specifically, could land Irving without giving up Austin Reaves on his podcast yesterday.

This landed him an ESPN hit on Monday that was used for more content later in the slate.

Just pretend for a second that the playoffs are over and that's why we're talking about him instead of Jimmy Butler or Nikola Jokic. Here's Stephen A. Smith explaining why the Lakers have to do it. Shockingly, Smith did not pull out his favorite buzzword to describe Irving — "box office." But the sentiment remains.