Mavs vs. Lakers in Trade for Kyrie Irving? Screw the 'Optics,' Mark Cuban
DALLAS - In another time and another place - one in which the Dallas Mavericks were either very much a contender or very much a non-contender - trading for the controversial Kyrie Irving would not be worth the bother.
But in this odd NBA season in which the Nuggets stand alone as a West power, with the Mavs somehow managing to sit in the No. 4 slot, to some degree inexplicably, amid a bundle of similarly in-the-middle clubs?
Shoot your shot, Mark Cuban.
We don't need to dig through the Jalen Brunson goof-ups again, but we do need to address the idea of a "second-best Mav'' ... and whether on paper, Irving is superior in that sense to Spencer Dinwiddie. ...
And we bring up Dinwiddle because we bet that might be the Brooklyn Nets' asking price for Irving, who has (again) requested to be traded.
Doncic is off to a historic start but he's too often doing it alone. Dinwiddie has been a big help, but not as big a help as a "star'' who is also a another ball-handler and scorer.
Irving is that. Irving - bless his heart - is a bit of a loon. (A kind way of saying it.) Chemistry-wise, he would be infinitely more polarizing than the guys going out in Dwight Powell (a Dallas glue guy), Frank Ntilikina (helping the salary match) and ...
Dinwiddle.
We bet Brooklyn won't take Tim Hardaway Jr. and his salary. We bet they will listen, as Dallas jousts with LeBron James' Lakers, to attempt to pry Kyrie from Brooklyn.
What is the Lakers' motivation in pursuing this? They're in 12th place in the West ... but LeBron's "guy'' Irving could change that.
What would be Dallas' motivation in not pursuing this? Really ... optics. That's it.
"Risk? "What about reward''? "Delicate balance''? What about "Go for It''? Dallas could rise or fall in the standings, but this doesn't feel like a club prepared to return for a second straight year to the West Finals. So ... skip the "risk.'' Fight through the "chemistry.'' Put a filter on the "optics.''
If we're strictly analyzing basketball reasons, our proposed trade idea here is a talent win for the Mavs. And if we're talking "optics''?
The Lakers, we bet, know that "optics'' don't matter much if a team wins.
Irving is an all-time great finisher and ball-handler, an NBA champion who's been clutch, and maybe a mercenary who has something to prove.
Let him prove it in Dallas. Let him be Luka's helper. Let a team stuck on Cuban's infamous "Treadmill of Mediocrity'' see if Kyrie Irving shoves it to a different speed forward.
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