The Dallas Maverickswere marching strong before the NBA trade deadline. They shook their roster up by trading for soon-to-be free agent Kyrie Irving, and their season — unsurprisingly — went down the drain.
Irving is one of the best scorers in the league, but he was far from what the Mavericks needed at the time. They gave up defense and depth to get him, which were two of their biggest issues even before the trade.
So, as predicted, he and Luka Doncic struggled to get stops, and the Mavs went from a near-lock to make the playoffs to falling way outside of the picture. Even so, Irving thinks there's a silver lining in all of this.
Kyrie Irving Says There's Still A Glimmer Of Hope
“We’ve just been losing tough ones, emotionally draining, but at the same time, we’re professionals,” Irving said, as quoted by The Dallas Morning News. “So I think the fun part of it is we still have a glimmer of hope, a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel of where we can still sneak in. But at the same time, I’m at peace with just our effort, with spurts throughout the games. We’ve just got to be able to finish better as a team."
Kyrie Says He's In This For The Long Run
"I think their realistic view is that when I came here, that this was going to be a growing process," Irving said. "This was for the long term, and this is for something that’s bigger than ourselves, and we can’t just be a championship team overnight, especially me coming here."
"I’ve wrapped my head around that aspect of it; I’m at peace with it," the guard continued. "It doesn’t mean I’m giving up on this season or any of my teammates, but we know where we realistically are. Our destiny is in other teams' hands losing games, so we just have to control what we can."
Whatever the case, Doncic has already stated that he's not having fun at all, so he might not feel the same way as his co-star. The Mavs made a huge mistake, and it might come back to haunt them for years to come.
