Following a Cryptic tweet by Irving about an hour later, he’s officially requested a trade:

Irving’s trade request comes as a surprise to almost everyone because we haven’t heard anything in the news. Normally when a star like Irving is getting ready to jump ship on their team, we hear people chirping around the league about a potential trade. But this time, we heard nothing.

The trade request came out of nowhere and blindsided the basketball world as we close in on the February 9 trade deadline.