If the Dallas Mavericks want to keep from reliving the Jalen Brunson mistake, they may need to think hard about Kyrie Irving before the trade deadline.
That’s the uncomfortable lesson hanging over this season. Dallas let Brunson reach free agency in the summer of 2022 and got nothing back when he left for the New York Knicks.
The front office had a chance to extract value at the trade deadline, but it passed. Brunson then turned into one of the best point guards in the NBA and helped lead New York to its first NBA championship since 1973.
For Mavericks fans, that exit still stings. Brunson’s growth after leaving Dallas left plenty of people wondering what the roster might look like now if he and Luka Doncic had stayed together. That’s why the Irving situation deserves real attention instead of a simple refusal to listen.
There are differences between now and 2021-22, of course. Irving is under contract through the end of the 2027-28 season, not set to hit the open market immediately.
If he opts into his $43.4 million player option after next season, he would still have one more year in Dallas. If he doesn’t, he becomes an unrestricted free agent.
And that’s where the risk starts to look familiar.
If Irving has a strong season, turns back the clock, and then decides to test free agency, the Mavericks could be forced into a costly negotiation just to keep him. If they can’t or won’t pay up, they could end up watching another star walk away with nothing coming back in return. That’s the exact trap Dallas fell into with Brunson.
So if the Mavericks are serious about leaning into the Cooper Flag era, the smarter play may be to explore Irving deals rather than shut the door on them. Trading him at the deadline could bring back players closer to Flagg’s timeline and add draft capital, giving Dallas a better path to build toward contention.
If Irving comes back strong, he’d still carry major trade value next season. And if the Mavericks want to avoid another Brunson-style loss, they should at least be open to moving him while they still can.
In Other News...
Mavericks Still Have One Big Kyrie Problem To Solve
Training camp is approaching with Dallas still trying to sort out what life looks like at point guard once Kyrie Irving is fully back from ACL recovery. The roster around him has changed quite a bit, with several previous guards moved out and the team trying to patch the position with new faces and internal options. Marcus Sasser and rookie Sergio De Larrea are part of that effort, but the Mavericks are also staring at the possibility that they may need to lean on Cooper Flagg or Naji Marshall at times just to get through the early part of the year.
The bigger question is whether the front office is done searching. Dallas still has room to keep reshaping the backcourt, and the current mix does not fully answer how the team wants to cover those minutes behind Irving. If the guard group still looks thin once camp gets going, the Mavericks could be forced to use one of their frontcourt pieces as trade material to bring in another handler before the season starts. [Read more 🡒]
Caleb Martin Could Fill A Mavericks Need That Still Has No Answer
Dallas has done a good job of bolstering its wing depth and adding shooting, but one familiar issue still hangs over the roster: perimeter defense. Caleb Martin could end up being part of the answer. The 30-year-old small forward brings the kind of defensive tools the Mavericks need on the perimeter, and even with his offense going in fits and starts and a history of injuries, he is expected to get a real chance to carve out playing time.
For a team that wants more resistance against opposing star guards, Martins fit is easy to see alongside Kyrie Irvings return in the backcourt mix. The bigger question is whether that defensive promise turns into a steady role when the games start to matter, because Dallas still has to decide how much trust to place in him on a night-to-night basis. [Read more 🡒]
Mavericks Fans Wont Like This New Kyrie Irving Trade Debate
A speculative three-team trade proposal has started stirring up the usual kind of offseason buzz around Kyrie Irving, and it is the sort of idea Mavericks fans are likely to take personally. The framework would shuffle Irving, Darius Garland, Andrew Wiggins, Davion Mitchell and a future first-round pick across Miami, Dallas and the Clippers, with the concept built more around star-chasing than around what makes sense for each roster.
From Dallas side, the skepticism is pretty straightforward. The front office says it has no intention of moving Irving, who is recovering from injury and expected to return, and one Mavericks insider was blunt in grading the teams side of the proposal poorly because it would not deliver enough help in return. The concern is less about the headline names than the cost, especially when a deal would force the team to part with precious future assets and take on another significant obligation. [Read more 🡒]