By deliberately avoiding the playoffs, the Dallas Mavericks intentionally “took a step back” to “take a step forward,” and a hard conversation needs to be had if they can do that with Kyrie Irving.
Amid the divine comedy that is the 2022-2023 Dallas Mavericks season, two players are skating when they need to be in a pit of starving tigers. The Mavericks missing the playoffs is not just an indictment on Mark Cuban, Jason Kidd and the rest of the roster but also Luka Doncic and Irving.
“We are not going to be in this position again,” Mavericks GM Nico Harrison said Tuesday. “Everybody needs to be evaluated, myself included.”
Look at the teams that did not make the NBA’s postseason, and the Mavericks feature the only roster with two All-Star players.
Luka can be better. There is a better more complete player in there. He’s still only 24.
A sports journalist saying a pro athlete can be in better shape is a bit much, but it doesn’t mean it’s not true.
Kyrie? That’s a finished product and known commodity. Good or bad. He’s 31.
On Tuesday, a few hours before the NBA’s play-in tournament games began, Harrison met with the media at the team’s practice facility. There wasn’t much to be said, especially after his boss spelled out much of the failure on April 5, shortly before the Mavs beat the Sacramento Kings for their last win of the season.
Harrison would not comment on the NBA’s “investigation” into the Mavs’ tank job in the last two games to deliberately avoid making the play-in tournament. Why comment when the obvious response is, “Duh?”
Harrison did, however, reiterate what Cuban said last week; the priority is to sign Irving, who is a free agent.
“In this league you have to have talent,” Harrison said. “Him and Luka, their styles are different and they can play off each other. In the end, if you don’t have talent you can only go so far.”
What Harrison could not say is that this is a terrible idea. This is a terrible idea the Mavericks simply have no choice but to pursue.
However you want to cut this, the Mavericks finished 8-18 after Irving arrived. That trash record is not all on The Thinker, but his arrival propelled the Mavs not to the top of the Western Conference but rather the lottery.
Kyrie’s line with the Mavericks reads: 20 games, 27 points, 6 assists, 1.3 steals, 5 rebounds per game. He was inactive for eight games, although three of those inactives were not injury/load management related.
Pretty individual statistics aside, after Irving arrived none of these records is flattering.
This was not a Rajon Rondo-level horrible trade; Irving didn’t quit, but this deal was a flop. The Mavericks were a playoff team without Kyrie, and a lottery team with Kyrie; they were 8-13 in the games Kyrie played.
The optimist says that this team with Kyrie is close. The optimist can point to the load of close games the Mavs played after Irving arrived.
With Irving on the team, the Mavs played 15 games that were decided by six points or fewer. The Mavs were 4-11 in those games.
To this the Kyrie Defender screams, “What was their record when The Thinker and Doncic both played?!” When “Kyrie Doncic” was on the floor, the team was ... 5-11.
None of this looks or is good.
“We were close, but not close enough,” Harrison said. “I mean, we’re sitting here now.”
This is a bad rebounding and bad defensive team. If they continue to insist on doing neither, don’t expect the results to change much.
The NBA has changed, but basketball is still about possessions and making the other guy miss.
By all accounts, Irving was a good teammate and not a problem. Playing in Texas, where the heat on NBA players seldom eclipses 85 degrees, is better suited for a personality that does not sound like it deals too well with anything other than, “Yes,” “You’re right,” and, “Do what you want.”
Kyrie is an elite talent and he’s also going to do his thing. Whatever that is.
Kidd insists Irving and Doncic are “meant to be together,” but that these things take time.
For a moment, put aside Irving’s “personality” and consider his age. Consider his game.
He’s 31, and the last time he appeared in more than 70 regular-season games was 2016-’17. Some of those absences were due to the NBA’s COVID seasons, and specifically his refusal to take the COVID vaccine, which cost him games.
He is still one of the NBA’s most effective ball handlers, penetrators, and finishers at the rim. The trouble is that trait typically doesn’t age well. Constantly attacking the basket has consequences.
Assuming the Mavs keep Irving, they can expect to see one, maybe two, more prime years of his career.
There are plenty of reasons to just let him walk in free agency, which he may do. This is Kyrie Irving. He’s just as apt to run for Prime Minister of his native Australia as he is to re-sign with the Mavericks.
Either way, the Mavericks have no choice but to lean in and pray this works. They have nothing else.
About 75% of this roster needs a makeover; they need players who can do what Kidd wants. Defend. Rebound.
If the player that keeps this thing together is Maxi Kleber, your team has issues.
The Mavs have issues.
Those issues include their two best players: Luka Doncic, who has to be better, and Kyrie Irving, who the Mavs have no choice but to try to keep despite the alarming amount of evidence that says they should not.
