Phil Handy’s exit from the Mavericks is another reminder that Kyrie Irving’s Dallas situation has been transformed almost beyond recognition.
According to Marc J. Spears, Handy has left Dallas to join Nick Nurse’s staff with the Philadelphia 76ers, putting him back alongside LeBron James, whom he coached with the Cleveland Cavaliers from 2015 to 2018 and with the Los Angeles Lakers from 2019 until 2024. The move matters in Dallas because Handy also spent two of Irving’s three seasons in Cleveland working with him, giving the Mavericks guard another close connection to the old guard.
That does not make Philadelphia a likely landing spot for Irving. The 76ers’ top-heavy payroll makes that kind of trade hard to picture. But it does add one more layer to a situation that has been shifting under Irving for months.
The Mavericks are no longer the team that brought Irving in to play alongside Luka Doncic. Nico Harrison, who acquired Irving in 2023, is gone.
Jason Kidd, another trusted voice in Irving’s orbit, is gone too. And Doncic, the player Irving was supposed to partner with, was dealt to the Lakers just two years after the Irving trade, in a move that brought Anthony Davis, Max Christie and a future first-round pick back to Dallas.
Harrison’s deal for Irving came with Spencer Dinwiddie, Dorian Finney-Smith, a 2029 first-round pick and two second-rounders going to Brooklyn. His previous relationship with Irving helped grease the wheels, since Harrison had worked as Nike’s vice president of basketball operations while Irving was a Nike athlete from 2011 to 2022.
Then the entire picture changed again. Irving tore his ACL in March 2025, just a month after the Doncic trade.
While Irving was out, Dallas landed the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft and selected Cooper Flagg, a move that looked like the start of something new. Months later, the Mavericks fired Harrison and then traded Davis, leaving the roster looking more and more like a different franchise.
After the 2025-26 season, Dallas hired Masai Ujiri to take over Harrison’s former role, and one of Ujiri’s first major calls was moving on from Kidd.
Even the roster around Irving has changed in ways that make him stand out. He is now 34, the oldest player on the team after Dallas waived 36-year-old Klay Thompson. With a younger roster taking shape, Irving is no longer surrounded by the same familiar faces or the same kind of organizational comfort.
That is part of why NBA teams continue to keep tabs on him, according to Marc Stein, even though Dallas has previously turned away trade interest. Handy’s departure by itself does not mean Irving is on the move, and it does not mean the Mavericks are actively preparing to deal him. He was very close to Irving.
Still, when you stack Handy’s exit on top of the firings, the trades and the new direction Dallas has taken, it gets harder to ignore how little is left of the original setup that once made Irving look like a cornerstone.
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