Kyrie Irving, Mavs Support Luka Doncic Amid 'Frustrating' Season: 'There's A Human Element'
CHARLOTTE — After Friday's loss to the Charlotte Hornets, there was a heightened frustration level from the Dallas Mavericks, including Luka Doncic. He vocalized as such, explaining that he doesn't feel like himself on the court and that he used to have fun before it became frustrating.
"Yeah, it's really frustrating. I think you can see it with me on the court. Sometimes I don't feel it's me. I'm just being out there. I used to have fun, smiling on the court, but it's just been so frustrating..."
Rarely has Doncic vocalized frustrations in media during his NBA career. Following the Mavs' second consecutive loss to the Hornets on Sunday, Irving expressed his support for what Doncic is currently going through, explaining how the human element often gets overlooked in sports.
"I'm sure he's had some private time to acknowledge it, but when he acknowledges it in a public eye, I think it's usually suppressed emotions from a long period of time and he just wanted to get it out off of his chest, and I'm proud of him for being honest and open," Irving said after Sunday's game.
Irving mentioned that Doncic's comments were discussed in the locker room briefly, and that he wants to focus on the personal element beyond basketball when it comes to his relationships with teammates.
"We obviously talked about it in the locker room briefly, but for me, I've said throughout my whole entire year, this past year, of just really paying attention to the human element," Irving explained.
"The wins and losses come and go, but the kind of nitpicking of judgment of what's going on when someone says, 'I'm having human emotions,' and then it goes to what's the blame or who's the blame? And it starts pointing fingers. You know, that's the aspect that I don't enjoy about this sport at all.
"There's a human element that goes into this where we perform every single day."
On Sunday, Doncic led the Mavs with 40 points, 12 rebounds, and eight assists, but another underwhelming start as a team proved too much to overcome. Dallas came out flat, scoring 16 points in the first quarter, causing them to enter the second period facing a 14-point deficit.
"I thought Luka, again, being able to do what he did this afternoon after his press conference [on Friday], I thought, I said in pre-game that I thought he would have a big game, and he did," Kidd said. "It's just unfortunate how we let these two games go, but we have to figure out how to stop the bleeding."
The Mavs return to action on Monday when they travel to Indiana to take on the Pacers. They are likely to do so without Doncic in the lineup as he faces a one-game suspension after recorded his 16th technical foul of the season, resulting in a one-game suspension barring it being rescinded.
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