Kyrie Irving is an All-Star point guard for the Cleveland Cavaliers and he's the cover athlete for NBA 2K18, but there's a chance only half of that statement will be true in the next few weeks.
Per Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com, Irving asked the Cavs to trade him to one of four teams: San Antonio Spurs, Miami Heat, Minnesota Timberwolves or the New York Knicks.
Irving has no trade veto power in his contract, so the Cavs don't have to meet his demands on a destination, but one of those teams might be willing to offer more if they believed Irving would be happy to belong to their organization.
The NBA 2K series has been in existence since 1999 and it has had 18 different cover athletes. In that time, not one of them has ever been traded before the game was released, or even in the same season in which they were named the cover athlete. If Irving is traded, what would 2K do about their outdated cover?
I reached out to the company for comment, but as of publishing time, I hadn't received a response. However, Ronnie Singh aka Ronnie 2K, the NBA 2K Community Manager, tweeted this shortly after the rumors began to swirl.
I'd prefer the box art stays the same
— Ronnie 2K 2K18 (@Ronnie2K) July 21, 2017
Singh was probably jokingly acknowledging the hottest NBA rumor, but changing the cover is a real possibility. A publisher probably wouldn't want to release a game with a high-profile player like Irving on his old team. That said, it would probably be pretty difficult (though not impossible) to have Irving pose in his new uniform, should he be traded.
We don't know for sure, but the most likely resolution would probably be an expert-level photoshop job that sees Irving's new team's jersey replacing the Cavs uniform.
