Kyrie Irving Traded To The Dallas Mavericks

i3artow i3aller · Feb 6, 2023

Dredd said: ↑

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jim1961 · Feb 6, 2023

zeeshan2 · Feb 6, 2023

And, make no mistake, Irving is at his best right now. This is not landing Kristaps Porzingis on the heels of a catastrophic injury, nor is it banking on a change of scenery to revitalize Rajon Rondo. Since returning from suspension on November 20—we’ll get there—Irving has averaged 27 points per game and more than five rebounds and assists while hitting nearly 50 percent of his field goals and 40 percent of his threes. In terms of present-day ability, he is comfortably the best player Luka Doncic will have played alongside. It is a testament to how good Irving remains at age 30 that you can take that at face value, independent of any damning with faint praise that comes with Doncic having never played with an All-Star teammate up until now. The Mavericks now employ the premier backcourt in basketball, and that backcourt is talented enough to form the backbone of an NBA championship team.

This is the upside to the deal. If it is realized—consistently, across multiple seasons—that upside is well worth moving Spencer Dinwiddie (whose game, even on its best day, is a faint facsimile of what Irving provides), Dorian Finney-Smith (vital and beloved, who nevertheless tops out as the fourth-best player on a championship team), and a 2029 first-rounder (which, if Luka is still around, may not yield much more than Keon Johnson, who was selected with the first draft pick Dallas sent New York for Porzingis and who you need a search engine to learn anything meaningful about) along with two second-rounders. (The Mavericks also got back Markieff Morris, who is probably washed and who, as my 77 Minutes in Heaven co-host Tim Cato pointed out on our reaction show, still likely plays more than JaVale McGee the rest of the way.)

There are operating costs. A threadbare rotation swapped two useful players for one. An already-struggling defense will sag further without Finney-Smith. The team with only two ballhandlers still employs only two ballhandlers. But superstars shift destinies in the NBA, and Irving is among that precious few.

Throwing everything else aside for a moment, it will be fun as **** to watch Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving play basketball together. This is the point of sports as an entertainment vehicle, after all, and basketball aesthetics get no better than Doncic pairing up with a ballhandler who shreds defenses in a totally different way. Irving manipulates a basketball like it’s a yo-yo and once he gets to the rim he contorts in mid-air like he’s being animated in stop motion. When this goes well, it will be exhilarating, enthralling. Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving, however long they last, will be like nothing you’ve ever seen before in Dallas.

And yet.

Three other NBA franchises have employed Irving before the Mavericks. None of those three miss him. Rather than stay on the fast track toward becoming a Cleveland icon, Irving forced his way out a year after his championship-winning shot, reportedly going so far as to threaten to delay a surgical procedure until the regular season—thereby missing games—if the Cavaliers didn’t send him somewhere to be the focal point of a franchise rather than remain LeBron James’ right-hand man.

That somewhere, Boston, now loathes him for publicly committing his future to the Celtics, only to decamp for a division rival less than a year later after clashing with one of the team’s young stars and melting down in his final playoff series.

Then came Brooklyn, where he butted heads with his first head coach, openly undermined the second’s authority, and demanded a trade away from the third just 19 days after asserting that no one on the Nets’ roster was “halfway in” despite appearing infrequently enough to make the notoriously brittle Porzingis appear like an iron man.

There is a “Well, actually” baked in, of course, for those inclined to defend Irving’s refusal to get vaccinated against COVID-19 (thereby sitting out home games for most of the 2021-22 NBA season pursuant to what was then New York City law) and/or his decision to disseminate antisemitic propaganda on his Twitter account, then mostly refusing to apologize for it until that became part of the terms for reinstatement from a resulting suspension. Those incidents comprised the bulk of his missed time, although not all; he played just 20 games in his first season due to a shoulder injury. They are the flip side of the conviction that has led him to throw his weight behind far more admirable causes like his relationship with and ongoing support of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, donating a home to the family of George Floyd, paying off student loan debt to HBCU students, and offering financial assistance to WNBA players who opted out of playing during the pandemic in 2020 due to safety concerns.

Just as Irving scores when he wants, he does what he wants, too, circumstances and surroundings be damned. At best, he is mercurial and unreliable. At worst, the last seven years give license to question everything about him beyond his talent. Such as how much he cares about winning when he asked off the sixth-best team in basketball, fronted by Kevin Durant. And whether secondary motivators—history, legacy, belonging—carry any weight when he wanted out of the city that worshipped him as a championship hero and the city where he led one of the two most storied basketball teams ever. If he’s capable of sublimating himself to Doncic for an extended period, given that he couldn’t with James and, even after teaming up with Durant, left when they were closer than they’d been in two years to winning a championship. Most of all, what makes Dallas an environment more conducive to long-term harmony than the three before it? For that matter, what makes anyone so certain such a place even exists for Kyrie Irving in the NBA?

The Mavericks know all of this, and they made this move anyway, because they were mired in a pit they dug themselves. Several factors within their control—Porzingis underwhelming after his move to Dallas, losing Jalen Brunson for nothing in free agency, playing it safe in 2019 free agency, botching most of 2020 draft night—plus a huge one mostly outside of it—Doncic maturing too quickly for the team to tank very long, thereby preventing them from acquiring more lottery picks—intermingled to create a predicament where the team asked too much of Doncic and had precious few avenues to change his supporting cast.

They could not draft their way out of it, because they have few picks and even less time for them to mature with Doncic’s next contract never too far off in the horizon. They could not count on landing a star in free agency, either, due to a near-total lack of cap room in the immediate future and a very-total failure to do so in the years they had it available. Whenever the next unblemished game-changing talent hits the trade market, the Mavericks could be outbid by a number of teams with more assets.

Dallas was desperate, and this is what desperate teams do: they talk themselves into whatever they need to talk themselves into. They have no choice but to believe that this will work, that Irving’s awareness of his own radioactivity lends itself to him being his best self. If nothing else, they’ll probably be right through the remainder of this season, up to his free agency; refer back to the numbers and good conduct Irving put up from the end of his suspension until his trade demand, which was precipitated by him not receiving an extension offer he found suitable.
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J.R. · Feb 6, 2023

https://www.basketballnews.com/stor...rk-cuban-breaks-silence-on-kyrie-irving-trade

"I think this is going to be great for both of them," Cuban told Basketball News. "They can play off of each other and given that both can get where they want on the court, it's going to put a ton of pressure on defenses."

i3artow i3aller · Feb 6, 2023

J.R. · Feb 6, 2023

Reeko · Feb 6, 2023

Mavs did make the WCF with Brunson

20-21 Harden and Kyrie with no KD still had BK looking dominant

Bron and Kyrie won a championship

Mavs defense is ass tho, and Kyrie’s mental state is about as reliable as Jabari Smith from 3

J.R. · Feb 6, 2023

Nook · Feb 6, 2023

J.R. said: ↑

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Translation: "The regular season ends April 9th, I will be in Barbados by April 10th getting drunk in a cabana and posting veiled passive aggressive shots at the Lakers that Brian Windhorst will be on ESPN to discuss for two months."

mtbrays · Feb 6, 2023

J.R. said: ↑

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Man who crippled franchise via the Westbrook trade surprised franchise is crippled

B-Bob · Feb 6, 2023

Reeko said: ↑

...

Mavs defense is ass tho, and Kyrie’s mental state is about as reliable as Jabari Smith from 3
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Seldom should both people feel insulted by a comparison, but bravo -- you pulled it off. Ouch on both.

i3artow i3aller · Feb 6, 2023

Dale Dribble

Os Trigonum · Feb 6, 2023

lol

SuraGotMadHops · Feb 6, 2023

I don't know, he's a headcase and everything, but Kyrie can still flat out cook. Luka finally has a legit superstar with him now, I won't be surprised if the Mavs take flight now.

DaBeard · Feb 6, 2023

Rockethard · Feb 6, 2023

So what all star team does Kyrie play with now? Selected for east now plays for west

daywalker02 · Feb 6, 2023

KingCheetah said: ↑

Luka, Kyrie, and Wood = Lebron, Wade, and Bosh.
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Wood is a better Bargnani.

i3artow i3aller · Feb 6, 2023

J.R. · Feb 6, 2023

PhiSlammaJamma · Feb 6, 2023

Dallas got better. Obviously. The challenge is that Kyrie doesn't feel accountable to anyone for anything. He's not playing, nor does he act, on behalf of his brothers. And it's a team game. That is a problem not easily pushed aside.

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Kyrie Irving Traded To The Dallas Mavericks

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