This is Danny's MO: be in on everything in case you can get anything out of it.
We won't trade for Irving, but we'll be sure to get some information about it, just in case we can use it.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if Danny is talking about trading for Kyrie.
Thomas is at the end of his deal and will demand a Max contract to the tune of around $30M next year if we keep him. Who truly believes that the Celtics can win a title with $90M+ invested in Isaiah Thomas, Gordon Hayward and Al Horford? Neither of those guys is a game changer.
Trading Thomas for Kyrie (who is on around $20M/year) would save Boston about $10M is cap space over the next two seasons while also making the team stronger (Similar offensive ability to Thomas, without being quite so much of a defensive liability).
For the Cavs it makes sense too - if they want to keep Lebron they'll need to convince him they are serious about winning now, and getting Thomas back allows them to walk out of the Kyrie situation without really taking much (if any) of a backwards step. Cavs clearly don't care about luxury tax at this point (given they have the highest salary total in the NBA) so they would likely have no reservations about re-signing Isaiah to a max deal.
Actually makes a lot of sense for both teams I think.
I mean if you are the Cavs you'd still rather have Kyrie then Thomas, due to the size issues Thomas presents, but if you HAVE to let Kyrie go you'd rather get Thomas back rather than some package of scrubs and draft picks.