All-Star guard Kyrie Irving of the Brooklyn Nets wants to play for the team in the 2022-23 season, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic.

Irving played only 33 games (inclusive of the regular season and playoffs) for the Nets last season due to New York City's vaccine mandate as he declined to be vaccinated, and for other personal reasons. His long-time absence was one of the reasons behind the team's collapse. Not only were they swept by the Boston Celtics in the first round of the postseason, they also had to trade James Harden to the Philadelphia 76ers after he fell out with the Nets.

Irving's request for a maximum contract extension during the offseason kept his relations with the Nets on edge, but he opted to exercise his player option for the last year of his current deal, allowing the team to keep him for one more season or trade him for some assets. The latter option has gone nowhere so far.

"Right now, Kyrie Irving, he opted into his contract, he's committed to the Nets and from everything I have been told, he's been doing everything behind the scenes… I think what you are going to see from Kyrie Irving is just a level of high professionalism and I think that's what he's shown since he opted in… I think the likelihood is still that right now, the plan is for him to stay a Net going into training camp and the season," Shams said on the "Pat McAfee Show" on Tuesday.

This should be good news for the Nets who have also been dealing with Kevin Durant's trade request. Irving averaged 27.4 points, 4.4 rebounds, 5.8 assists, 1.4 steals and 3.4 triples at 41.8 percent of 3-point rate in the 29 regular season games he played for the team last season. When he focused on playing basketball, he was still an efficient isolation scorer who made a difference for the team on many occasions.

The Nets will need him to keep doing that for more than 33 games in the 2022-23 campaign. Whether Durant ends up staying or leaving, the chances of him playing as he did in the previous two seasons are not good, especially after his latest meeting with the team's owner Joseph Tsai.

Shams revealed that Durant asked Tsai to fire the Nets' head coach Steve Nash and general manager Sean Marks or trade him during their meeting this week. Tsai responded by tweeting on Monday: "Our front office and coaching staff have my support. We will make decisions in the best interest of the Brooklyn Nets."

Durant and Irving joined hands at the Nets in the summer of 2019. It took Durant a year to recover from the Achilles tendon injury, but he was the team's best-performing player in the following two seasons. Irving missed 133 games in those three seasons due to injuries and other reasons. The Nets acquired Ben Simmons in the trade of Harden, but Simmons has not made any appearances for the team because of injury, among other reasons.