Dallas — Luka Doncic has his co-star, and the Dallas Mavericks will essentially restart their season after being traded for Kyrie Irving.
The blockbuster deal with Brooklyn The moody Irving’s move to the Mavericks became official on Monday, two days before his rumored Dallas debut with the Los Angeles Clippers.
Dallas also gets Markieff Morris in a trade that sent Spencer Dinwiddie, Dorian Finney-Smith, a 2029 first-round pick and two second-round picks to the Nets.
It’s unknown if Doncic will be available against the Clippers. He was absent from the Mavs at the start of a five-game trip west after bruising his right heel in the last home game before the trip. He was ruled out of the second game of the Utah trip Monday night.
Whenever the All-Stars step out together, Doncic and Irving instantly become one of the NBA’s top duos in a tight-packed Western Conference.
Doncic is in a dead heat for the lead with fellow MVP candidate Joel Embiid of Philadelphia and is the only one of the current seven 30-point scorers who also averages at least eight rebounds and eight assists per game. Irving averages 27.1 points, 5.3 assists and 5.1 rebounds.
The West has multiple teams in title contention alongside defending champion Golden State, who eliminated the Mavs in the Conference Finals last season.
Dallas is in a group of nine teams that started the day in defeat. It includes teams currently in fourth place, last place with home field advantage in the first round, through 12th place, two positions from the postseason play-in tournament.
The 13th-seeded Los Angeles Lakers with LeBron James and Anthony Davis are just two more losses behind those bundled playoff hopes.
Jalen Brunson was crucial to Dallas’ playoff run alongside Doncic last season but chose to have his own starting point guard role and made a free-hand move to the New York Knicks.
While the Mavericks traded for a solid No. 2 leading scorer in Christian Wood in the offseason, they couldn’t win this season without Doncic.
Dallas was 0-7 without Doncic going into the game against the Jazz when Wood was due to return after missing eight games with a broken left thumb.
The Mavericks never really got a chance to see if the roster they built after Brunson’s departure was good enough for another deep postseason run.
Defensive specialists Finney-Smith and Josh Green were sidelined for a few weeks with injuries, and rim guard Maxi Kleber joined them after a hamstring tear. Kleber could be on the verge of a return.
A year ago, the Mavericks were right at 0.500 when they began their climb just as the calendar swung to 2022. The 2023 arrival didn’t have the same effect — the peak so far is six games over .500 — but the Mavs are hoping Irving’s arrival will.
Dallas made the bold move of pairing Doncic with Irving after the Nets tried to do the same with Irving, and Kevin Durant never had much opportunity to click in more than three seasons.
The trade came two days after Irving told the Nets he wanted out until the league closed on Thursday after talks about a contract beyond this season didn’t go to his liking.
For now, Irving will become a free agent after the season. However, future negotiations will involve the Dallas general manager, who was a Nike executive prior to the Mavericks’ acquisition in 2021.
Irving has had a relationship with Nike throughout his NBA career up until earlier this season. when the sneaker giant dropped him and canceled the planned release of his next signature shoe right before the release. It was part of the massive following of Irving posting a link to an anti-Semitic film on his Twitter account.
It was one of many dramatic sagas that shaped Irving’s time with the Nets. He did not get vaccinated against COVID-19 and had to miss most of Brooklyn’s home games last season due to New York City labor rules. He also took two leave of absence in the 2020/21 season.
He’s also expressed many controversial opinions throughout his career – including repeatedly asking if the earth is round before finally apologizing to science teachers.
“Thank you NetsWorld fans and supporters for the love on and off the pitch,” Irving tweeted early Monday Morning. “I will forever be grateful that I got to live the dream I had as a child with all of you. It will always be love from me and my family.”
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