Tyronn Lue advised Cavs to hold onto Kyrie

It's not always a great idea to trade an All-Star, especially one not yet in the prime of their career.

At least, that's how Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Tyronn Lue felt about Kyrie Irving before he was dealt to the Boston Celtics for Isaiah Thomas last summer, according to Dave McMenamin of ESPN.

Lue coached Irving and the Cavaliers to two straight NBA Finals, and believed it would be best to ignore the star's trade demand like the Los Angeles Lakers did when Kobe Bryant asked to be moved in 2007.

"We wanted to figure out is this real?" Cavs GM Koby Altman said, according to McMenamin. "Is Kyrie someone we might want to bring back and say 'Hey, look, players have figured it out in the past. You're going to figure it out. We're going to still be really good, we're going to be winning games, so it's not going to be all awful.' You know what I mean? So, thinking about the parameters of that, the implications of that was something we were also always debating."

Besides Thomas, the Cavaliers also received forward Jae Crowder, rookie center Ante Zizic, the Brooklyn Nets' unprotected 2018 first-round pick, and the Miami Heat's 2020 second-round pick from the Celtics.

"You can't get better trading a four-time All-Star going into his prime and a 25-year-old point guard going into his prime," Altman added, "but it gives you a unique opportunity to shuffle the deck and figure out long-term planning, but also figure out what goes around LeBron that's going to help us win a championship."

Irving has enjoyed a great start to the season, averaging 24.8 points and 4.9 assists for the 30-10 Celtics.