Cleveland Cavaliers: 3 2010s draft picks we wish would’ve worked out

2010s picks for the Cavs we wish would’ve worked out: Kyrie Irving

The Cleveland Cavaliers selected Kyrie Irving with the first overall pick of the 2011 NBA Draft.

This was a great pick for Cleveland. Irving did not make the list to gripe over him being selected rather than players like Kawhi Leonard or Paul George.

Instead, Irving is on the list because he was traded from the team.

While it was a necessary evil at the time, if the Cavaliers front office, coaching staff, or players were able to work out the issues that Irving had with the team he would have been the perfect player to keep the Cavs afloat during this rebuild.

Along with this, it could be argued that if Irving could have stayed happy in Cleveland, he could have done enough convincing to get Kevin Durant to sign with the Cavs rather than the duo joining forces in Brooklyn, at least theoretically.

Irving’s major issue with the Cavaliers and the reported reason why he demanded a trade is that he was sick of being a second option and wanted to be the head honcho on his own team.

However, once James left for the Lakers, Irving would have been the man in Cleveland and it is likely that the franchise would have done anything that he would have asked to keep him around with James out of the picture.

While the Cavs got a plethora of good years and memories out of Irving, it would have been amazing to have more and still have him as a part of the roster.