Nobody in Dallas is shopping Kyrie Irving today. That is not the same thing as saying he finishes his career there, and the league has noticed.
ESPN’s Tim MacMahon, who covers the Mavericks as closely as anyone, laid out the obvious tension this week: “They’re building around a 19 year old prodigy in Cooper Flagg. So could there come a time when it makes sense for both sides to find a contender for Kyrie to go to?”
The answer is yes. The only question is when.
The Flagg Timeline Problem
Irving and the Mavericks still have a good relationship, even after the front office and coaching staff turned over. This is not a feud story. It is an arithmetic story.
Flagg is 19. Irving has two years and $82 million left on his deal with a player option in the second year, and he is coming off a torn ACL. Those two competitive windows barely overlap. Dallas has spent this offseason getting younger everywhere else, with Daniel Gafford and PJ Washington both flagged around the league as veterans aging out of the new timeline.
Irving is the most valuable name in that category by a mile, and also the hardest to move right now for the simplest reason: nobody trades for a guard coming off an ACL tear before seeing him play.
Why January Is the Real Date
Per Sean Deveney of Heavy, there have not been active discussions on Irving and nothing is imminent. The sensible plan is to play him through the first half of the season, let him prove the knee holds up, rebuild his market value and then revisit around the trade deadline.
That is the correct read. An Irving who looks like himself in December becomes one of the most desirable additions available anywhere, a closer who can create a shot out of nothing in the fourth quarter of a playoff game. An Irving who looks a step slow is a $41 million problem nobody wants.
Dallas holds the leverage either way. The Mavericks will not be afraid to keep him. He makes Flagg’s rookie years easier, he draws defensive attention, and he is a useful teacher for a young roster figuring out how to win.
The Right Move Is to Sell High
Here is where I land: Dallas should trade him if the knee cooperates.
Not out of disrespect. Irving has been excellent for that franchise and he handled the Luka Doncic aftermath with more grace than the organization deserved. But a team rebuilding around a teenager should not be paying a 34-year-old guard star money to lift them from ninth to seventh.
Contenders will pay a real price for a healthy Irving, and Dallas needs draft capital and young wings far more than it needs another play-in appearance. Waiting until next summer to see if he picks up the option just hands away the leverage the Mavericks currently hold.
Irving deserves a shot at another title run somewhere it can actually happen. Dallas deserves the assets that come with sending him there. Those two things point at the same February deadline.
Check back in mid-January. If Irving is moving well by then, this stops being a rumor.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.