CLEVELAND — Just hours after ESPN.com’s Brian Windhorst revealed that Kyrie Irving asked Cavaliers team management for a trade, owner Dan Gilbert made one of the most shocking moves in league history by releasing Irving rather than abiding by his wishes for a trade.

“We simply don’t deserve this kind of cowardly betrayal,” Gilbert somehow managed to tweet in comic sans from his Twitter account @cavsdan. “We have given so much and deserve so much more.”

Gilbert had been stopped from making knee-jerk, reckless moves in the past by various Cavs general managers, but with an empty chair currently filling that role, the owner went ahead and made the move himself.

It had been reported by ESPN that Irving gave the Cavs a list of four teams — the Knicks, Timberwolves, Heat and Spurs — that he’d like to be traded to, but Gilbert called it a “victory for the city” that he will not get his wish granted for a trade to one of them.