The Mavericks’ 7-4 start has changed the mood around Dallas, and Kyrie Irving made it clear the noise around his future didn’t get ignored inside the locker room.
Irving said he spoke directly to the team about the trade chatter that swirled before the season, when questions about his return from a torn ACL and the Mavericks’ roster sparked plenty of speculation. Dallas chose not to entertain trade talks, and Irving said that decision was part of a larger message he wanted the group to hear.
“I think we heard a lot of the noise before the season and some of the predictions… just because of the roster that we had, no one really sure about where I was going to be, or where our team was going to be, or some of the trade rumors that had continued to circle around our team or circle me,” Irving stated after Monday’s win over the Indiana Pacers.
He said he wanted the team to shut all of that out.
“Just distractions, and I think we laid it right there. I let the team know, out of my own mouth, that these trade rumors, anything that’s going on with me, do not let this infiltrate our locker room. Don’t let this get in the way of what we have building here… We should not allow any external distractions or any external voices that don’t support us unconditionally or want to see us do well to infiltrate our locker room, so I think that’s one of the contributing factors.”
The Mavericks have already shown a much different face than last season, when they stumbled to 3-8 through 11 games and fans were chanting to fire Nico Harrison with P.J. Washington at the free-throw line in the 11th game. Harrison was fired soon after, and Dallas has overhauled everything since.
On the court, Irving has helped steady things. Monday’s win over Indiana was the first time he played in a back-to-back since returning from injury. He logged fewer than 30 minutes in Sunday’s blowout over the Brooklyn Nets, then played 38 minutes against the Pacers with the benefit of no game again until Thursday.
He delivered in a big way, scoring 35 points on 11/18 shooting and going 7/10 from three.
Through nine games, Irving is averaging 22.9 PPG and 4.3 APG while sitting just a hair under 50/40/90. For a 34-year-old coming back from a torn ACL, that’s a strong start.
If Dallas keeps winning at this pace, the idea of Irving staying put only gets stronger.
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