But the issue is that even without his contract they are over the cap (assuming Horford and Baynes stay on player options).. So they are over the cap while losing Kyrie, Rozier, Morris, for nothing. Which was one of the largest reasons I think anybody even considered trading him as a legit option. The money going to all these guys and keeping them all long term went out the window once they added Hayward.
Even if they keep Kyrie and he wants to stay they will have to pay Horford a new contract after next year, as well as Baynes, as well as Brown, as well as owing Hayward his 35mil still, presumably after already losing Rozier and Morris also. And turn around and max Tatum the following season after that. Which would have to well over the largest payroll in league history while paying 4-years worth of repeater tax.
Nearly all championship level teams take at least a couple of seasons to build chemistry, that was never going to be feasible with this group after adding Hayward. No way they could keep them all. Then they didn't trade Brown, or Tatum, or Rozier when their value was at it's highest which left their best move at trading Kyrie and probably another piece for one really big piece instead of having the price tag of two max-near max guys rather than just the 1 that they would trade for..
Also that redundancy of too many mouths to feed did seem to play a negative factor at times this year. Not saying a trade would have magically fixed it, but it couldn't made it any worse.