The Mavericks are open to moving their veterans at the deadline. Kyrie Irving is their most valuable veteran. You can do the rest of that math yourself.
Irving is on a two-year, $82 million deal with a player option, coming off an ACL tear that cost him the back half of last season. He turns 35 during this campaign.
Why Dallas Would Do It
Because the franchise has already decided what it is. Masai Ujiri took over as president and said publicly that the focus is Cooper Flagg. Dusty May was hired to develop young players. The ninth pick went to a 19-year-old big who played for May in college.
An expensive 34-year-old guard with a rebuilt knee does not fit that timeline. He fits the timeline of a contender that needs late-clock shot creation in May, and those teams pay for it.
Why It Is Complicated
The contract is the obstacle and the appeal at the same time. Forty-one million per year for a player coming off ACL surgery is a real risk. A player option means the acquiring team has no long-term certainty either way.
Any deal also requires Irving to be visibly healthy first. Nobody trades meaningful assets for a guard whose knee is still a question mark in January.
The Basketball Case for Him Is Still Strong
When healthy, Irving remains one of the most efficient isolation scorers alive and the exact player a playoff offense needs when a possession breaks down with eight seconds left. Half-court offense collapses in the postseason. Irving is a solution to that specific problem.
His media day comments about Flagg suggest he is also, at this stage of his career, a useful voice for a young team. “He deserves a lot of the praise he’s gotten because he’s carried a lot, and I commend him,” Irving said.
Who Actually Calls
Contenders with a shot creation hole and enough matching salary. That list is short and every team on it will wait until February to see how the knee is holding up.
The smart approach for a buyer is patience. Let Irving play 35 games, watch the burst, then negotiate from a position of information Dallas will not have leverage against.
The Outcome I Expect
Irving finishes the season in Dallas. The rehab timeline makes a midseason trade awkward for everyone, and the Mavericks get more value from having him mentor Flagg through a full year than from whatever a deadline return would look like.
Then the real decision arrives this summer, when the player option and the roster math force the conversation nobody in Dallas wants to have during a season built on optimism.
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.