Former Cleveland Cavaliers and current Boston Celtics guard Kyrie Irving reportedly never wanted LeBron James to return to the Cavs in 2014 following a four-year stint with the Miami Heat.

Irving's discontent came up during a roundtable discussion featuring Jason Lloyd of The Athletic, Dave McMenamin of ESPN.com and Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com on 92.3 The Fan in Cleveland (h/t Jack Maloney of CBSSports.com).

As part of the podcast, Lloyd said the following regarding how Irving felt about James' return to Cleveland:

"It has been made clear to me by multiple people, Kyrie never really wanted LeBron to come back [to Cleveland] in the first place. He didn't think it was necessary. LeBron said something to Kyrie on the court following a game when he was with Miami something to the effect of, 'Keep going, keep doing what you're doing. You never know, I could be back here one day.' And Kyrie basically said, 'What's he talking about, we don't need him.'"

McMenamin added that Irving nearly asked to be dealt after the Cavs won the championship in 2016: "Kyrie and his camp considered asking for a trade after the championship. They decided to keep it in-house and not go forward with it, but it was something they discussed."

Instead, Kyrie waited one more year before requesting a trade and getting dealt to the Celtics.

James is also no longer a member of the Cavaliers after agreeing to a four-year deal with the Los Angeles Lakers this offseason.

In their three seasons together, James and Irving led the Cavs to three NBA Finals berths and one championship.

Cleveland still managed to make the Finals last season without Irving, but LeBron was outgunned by the Golden State Warriors with little help from his supporting cast.

Irving had some bad injury luck both in terms of himself and teammate Gordon Hayward, but Boston still reached the Eastern Conference Finals last season.

With LeBron now in L.A., Irving and the C's will be heavy favorites to represent the East in the 2019 NBA Finals.

Kyrie was Cleveland's unquestioned go-to guy before LeBron arrived; however, the team was struggling as a whole.

Even though James became the No. 1 option, Irving improved with LeBron in the fold, as he averaged a career-high 25.2 points per game in 2016-17.

Irving performed well last season without James to the tune of 24.4 points per game, while LeBron had one of the best seasons of his career.

Although there is no denying the fact that James and Irving did some special things during their three years together, they showed last season that they are both top-flight players capable of producing at a high level and contending for championships on their own.