'This is Luka Doncic's Team!' Kyrie Irving Arrives, Mavs Coach Jason Kidd Reveals 'Alpha Males' Plan
Kyrie Irving has landed in Los Angeles and his practicing with his team.
Well, actually, with Luka Doncic's team.
“This isn’t two 23-year-olds trying to see who will be the alpha,'' said coach Jason Kidd after a Tuesday practice in Los Angeles that saw Irving debut in Mavs colors. "This is Luka’s team. It will be Luka’s team.”
Before the Dallas Mavericks' high-profile trade for Irving, critics insisted that Luka Doncic needed help with scoring and ball-handling. Maybe even a "second star'' ... or at least somebody who could help as much as Jalen Brunson used to.
And now that Kyrie is here? The same critics are wondering how two "scorers and ball-handlers'' are going to coexist.
But to Kidd, who knows something about sharing the ball?
“You can’t ask for a better situation,” Kidd said of the new Dallas duo. ""We feel that getting him is going to help put us in a position to win a championship."
In other words ... Kyrie is the Robin.
Luka is the Batman.
And Kyrie is giving no indication of having an issue here, saying, "I feel really wanted.''
It is, frankly, hypocritical to fail how this can work, on the floor. Push aside for the moment the baggage that the controversial Irving brings to Dallas via the "risky'' blockbuster trade; Irving, who like Doncic will play in the upcoming All-Star Game, is in a very literal way pretty much exactly the player the critics were pining for ...
And all of the on-court things that Brunson was good at?
Irving is better at.
“We look back at when we had JB, being able to have a play-maker like that,'' said Kidd, guiding us through the comparison. When you look at Ky - nothing against JB - but Ky is at a different level, so this gives us another weapon.
"Someone’s going to be free.''
Kidd (who knows something about dueling "alpha males,'' having been one in his rookie season in Dallas when he and Jim Jackson and Jamal Mashburn almost worked) has the utmost respect for Brunson, who exited Dallas amid a trio of front-office goofs and is now excelling with the New York Knicks. He's terrific - but he's not Kyrie.
Indeed, Doncic and Irving are two of the best scorers in the world, and they excel as distributors and creators as well. There is a difference between being "ball-dominant'' and being "selfish.'' Luka shared with Brunson. And who has Kyrie shared with? No less a "ball-dominant'' player than LeBron James.
"On paper,'' Kidd said of the Kyrie trade, "it gives us scoring, a champion, an All-Star — someone whose basketball IQ is extremely high. It gives us another weapon to put alongside Luka and the rest of his teammates."
Get that? Kyrie is being "put alongside'' ... like the other supplementary Mavs ... the guy who is the centerpiece.
There is a Batman. And there is a Robin.
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