Kyrie Irving: we already named a city after him!

[mvossman]

I mean Wood has no reason to sign it given the max that can be offered is two years. But the bottom line is the Mavs can offer him the most money in FA, and there's no doubt Wood is simply going to sign for the most money he can get given hes never had a long term contract. If we actually want to keep him it's totally in our hands IMO despite the way we've treated him particularly the Kidd disrespect to the media.

The argument that the Mavs can sign him for the most money in FA does not really matter if we are not maxing him (and we are not maxing him).  See Brunson.  A cap space team could decide to spend what would make us uncomfortable.

[Mavs2021]

I just think it's reality. He's a loser who could care less about playing basketball. He actively avoids trying. Talk about a team cancer.

I'd take Kyrie over Ben 10 times out of 10.

Out of curiosity.

How many games do you think Irving and Simmons have played for the Nets this year?

What do you think the Nets record is in those games?

Simmons 23-14 (62.1%) 37 games
Irving 24-16  (60%) 40 games

Out of more curiosity.

How many games do you think Irving and Simmons have played over the last four years and what are their teams records, when they do play?

Simmons 100-52 (66%) 152 games
Irving 82-61 (57%) 143 games

 Just saying.

[RoyTarpleysGhost]

What's this about industry sources expect Kyrie to sign a 3yr contract?

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/10...n_a_3year/

[Jason Terry]

Think about it. We traded a guy who a year ago was a salary dump bad contract. And an undrafted free agent. For a current all star starter. Not bad asset management in the grand scheme

[mvossman]

Out of curiosity.

How many games do you think Irving and Simmons have played for the Nets this year?

What do you think the Nets record is in those games?

Simmons 23-14 (62.1%) 37 games
Irving 24-16  (60%) 40 games

Out of more curiosity.

How many games do you think Irving and Simmons have played over the last four years and what are their teams records, when they do play?

Simmons 100-52 (66%) 152 games
Irving 82-61 (57%) 143 games

 Just saying.

Yep.  No better way to measure a player than team wins.  I'm sure there isn't any noise in that.  Also ignoring that Simmons is not the player he was a couple of years ago and probably never will be.

[F Gump]

The argument that the Mavs can sign him for the most money in FA does not really matter if we are not maxing him (and we are not maxing him).  See Brunson.  A cap space team could decide to spend what would make us uncomfortable.

1 I have a feeling that if there continues to be a lukewarm response to Wood being made available in trade, it will dampen Cuban's enthusiasm about the size of Wood's next contract, or whether they even want him. Because, if Wood isn't going to be a trade chip when needed, will Cuban think he has any use for him?

2 I would expect that the extension the Mavs have on the table for Wood is one that permits him to be traded (2 yrs added, about $31M tot), possibly based on the idea that he might bring back more in trade if he's signed for longer than 2 months.

3 After the deadline, when a trade isn't part of the mix, I wonder if Mavs offer goes up (to 3-4 years) or goes away entirely.

[Mavs2021]

What's this about industry sources expect Kyrie to sign a 3yr contract?

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/10...n_a_3year/

They (Windhorst/Lowe) think that he´ll meet the Mavs in the middle and agree to a three year deal extension. He will obviously demand the full four year max. While I´m 100% sure that nobody in free agency would offer him the 200/4, it still doesn´t give the Mavs much leverage. Unless the Mavs think behind his crazy uinpredictable behaviour is the very basic motivation: I take the most money available. That would likely still be a 150/3 offer from the Mavs, given the limited options with capspace in the summer. That´s the (easy) extension signing part done. How he behaves once he signed the maximum money offered on the market, is a totally different animal.

[Mavs2021]

Yep.  No better way to measure a player than team wins.  I'm sure there isn't any noise in that.  Also ignoring that Simmons is not the player he was a couple of years ago and probably never will be.

The argument was that Simmons is a losing player that hates playing basketball and actively tries to avoid playing. I think it´s fair to point that over the last 12 months and four years, whichever sample size you prefer, Simmons has played the same amount of games as Kyrie Irving and his teams have won more games.

....but I concede that Kyrie Irving has been severely handicapped throughout his career by having to play with poor teammates LeBron, Love, Brown, Tatum, Horford, Durant, Harden.

[HoosierDaddyKid]

Cleveland and Boston have recovered quite nicely. If we can get that treatment from him and turn out like those 2 franchises, I'll be pretty happy.

Great read. He tells it like it is.

[cjeter24]

https://twitter.com/David_Lord_2020/status/1622777912180060161?s=20&t=rJotsK-kfecBAO0_Doo6qw

[omahen]

https://twitter.com/David_Lord_2020/status/1622777912180060161?s=20&t=rJotsK-kfecBAO0_Doo6qw

LeBron also wanted Westbrook badly  There are rumors, that Clippers offer was just a smokescreen

[HoosierDaddyKid]

There's a LOT of assumptions here. Luka IMO doesn't have the personality of a controlling Lebron type. He's wanted to win now since his rookie year because he came from winning at Real Madrid, that's nothing new. Also Luka himself has no power to force any type of move himself as a threat for at least a couple years yet. I also don't think he would because he's not the malcontent type who would do anything really drastic like some other US raised players would do like sitting out games in protest. It's not as much part of European culture to pull that kind of stunt like it is US culture.

I don't think any of that matters. If he's not happy with the direction of the team, and they continue to fall short, I can guarantee he'll want out. I don't think he displays the loyalty that Dirk did. His generation is different.

[SleepingHero]

I think this is pretty fair and balanced

The thing is they all agree (and by they all I mean him, House, and Bill Simmons) that the Mavs are legit WCF contenders now, but its only a matter of time before Kyrie does a Kyrie thing and sabotages everything.

If somehow, by some miracle (I'm talking like movie trope 1 out of a billion kind of miracle) the Mavs can get Kyrie to not be Kyrie, then they have a really good player. 

Of course that's impossible. But I'm hoping for it. I'm trying to be positive. On paper the Mavs added exactly what they've been after for all these years.

[SleepingHero]

Out of curiosity.

How many games do you think Irving and Simmons have played for the Nets this year?

What do you think the Nets record is in those games?

Simmons 23-14 (62.1%) 37 games
Irving 24-16  (60%) 40 games

Out of more curiosity.

How many games do you think Irving and Simmons have played over the last four years and what are their teams records, when they do play?

Simmons 100-52 (66%) 152 games
Irving 82-61 (57%) 143 games

 Just saying.

This fails to take into account weighted seasons and games. How many games did Kyrie play in where KD was absent? How about Harden? It's all relative. 

What I see is Ben Simmons is gonna get paid about 80 million over the next 2 years and he's scored a grand total of 63 points for the entire month of January. He's currently out with a knee injury that he magically got after getting hit in the face. He's full of excuses. 

I'm not defending Kyrie. I didn't want him here, remember? But between the two, (and this really is a shit sandwich), Kyrie is by far the better player.

[SleepingHero]

https://twitter.com/mavspr/status/162273...22496?s=46&t=i62dUxWLt7ZmfR0nOEVHBA

[burekemde]

Think about it. We traded a guy who a year ago was a salary dump bad contract. And an undrafted free agent. For a current all star starter. Not bad asset management in the grand scheme

Agree. And some picks that we dont really need because we have the young players, we can now play them more minutes. Brilliant trade.

[JCB]

Just stopped by to see if some people are still in meltdown mode. Not as bad as 24 hours ago, but still enough to make my night! I love them salty tears.

Meanwhile, I might actually watch the Mavs play again. Even if the average score is 152-148, they should be winning more than losing, which is all I want to see in the end. 

I think Irving is going to have so much fun with Luka. And Luka has never had someone like Irving to relieve the pressure. Now Luka won't be shortening his career by half a season every year. And meanwhile, Wood is going to be standing at the rim dunking every missed shot while the other teams five on the floor chase our two headed monster all around the court. 

Hell, we might average 170.

[Dundalis]

The argument that the Mavs can sign him for the most money in FA does not really matter if we are not maxing him (and we are not maxing him).  See Brunson.  A cap space team could decide to spend what would make us uncomfortable.

I'm aware of that. Here's the thing, if the market for Wood is not there in the trade market like people are saying, then why would the market for him be there in free agency? There are less teams that have the cap space to sign him than there are that could trade for him. No team is offering him close to a max, if a team valued him that highly there wouldn't be no market for him in trades. And if a team is willing to offer him a decent contract in FA, there's no reason for the Mavs not to exceed it. Also can't we offer him more years than anyone else? Or is that not a thing anymore?

Also IMO he's more valuable to us in our current situation than Brunson arguably was, because his particular skillset purely on the offensive side is literally as good a compliment as you could get for Kyrie and Luka outside another superstar. Brunson's production was clearly suppressed by Luka due to their similar playstyles and we had Dinwiddie. Brunson had already made his mind up he was 100% going to go to NYK well before FA so we never had a shot at him, which is why we didn't even make an offer. Our only shot was the previous season when we could have gotten him super cheap but he was not the same level of player at that time. Even I had reservations he would ever develop into the player he is now with the Knicks.

Wood is a guy who I could see really thriving when he has two guys with insane gravity drawing a lot of defensive attention away from him and his inside/outside game compliments both guys perfectly. It should be up to the Mavs to find a way to fill out the rest of the roster with the best defensive guys they can find to make up for the flaws the trio present on that end (which shouldn't be that hard to attract if Kyrie works out and they extend him)

IMO if they trade Wood and get a defensive guy back with no offensive game, we've handicapped the offensive ceiling of this team. Kyrie and Luka as your only real offensive shot creators, when before you had three. IMO you need a true third option to maximise what you are getting from Luka and Kyrie not to mention when Kyrie inevitably misses games. Or maybe they finally believe in Hardy and are willing to give him a lot more minutes.

I don't think any of that matters. If he's not happy with the direction of the team, and they continue to fall short, I can guarantee he'll want out. I don't think he displays the loyalty that Dirk did. His generation is different.

I'm not talking about whether he wants out or not. I know he will want out if we don't put the right pieces around him. I'm talking about him using unprofessional tactics to force a trade out well before his contract ends. Doing shit like sitting out games. I'm saying I don't think he's that type and if he wants out but the Mavs won't trade him until they want to (which would probably TDL of the 25-26 season earliest, but more likely the end of the 25-26 season, which is a full two seasons after this one), he will play out his contract professionally even all the way to the end of it at the end of the 26-27 season. Meaning I don't think we have to worry about him forcing his way out lets say in the next year or two if things don't work out giving us more time than a lot of people think we have for the FO to get the team construction right.

[SleepingHero]

https://twitter.com/Krisplashed/status/1...5787286528


For all the talk about how Kyrie is a locker room cancer, I'm starting to feel that players really don't care about his antics. Claxton isn't the first guy to talk about how much he likes the guy. Hell even Tatum+Brown say they love Kyrie.

I feel like Kyrie's clashes come from management and coaches. He's the class clown. Other students love him, teachers hate him.

[Dundalis]

https://twitter.com/Krisplashed/status/1...5787286528


For all the talk about how Kyrie is a locker room cancer, I'm starting to feel that players really don't care about his antics. Claxton isn't the first guy to talk about how much he likes the guy. Hell even Tatum+Brown say they love Kyrie.

I feel like Kyrie's clashes come from management and coaches. He's the class clown. Other students love him, teachers hate him.

I think his negative locker room effect doesn't come from rubbing teammates the wrong way in a direct personal way, it's that his off field antics completely disrupt team harmony. i.e. a guy who decides he doesn't want to turn up to play because he wants to "find himself" or wants to spend time with his family, will eventually rub the wrong way guys on the team who work their ass off and can't afford to miss a day because they don't have the luxury, even if one to one hes a good guy to be around. Same with any other antics he pulls, it draws attention on the team away from on court stuff and maybe adds extra unneeded stresses and media attention. It's a distraction for everyone and it probably builds up over time into some resentment, players at Boston have spoken about it after he left there. There was relief that the distraction was gone and they could just focus on basketball and nothing else. The mood and harmony lifted after he left. That can be the case while players still regard him as a good person and good teammate in terms of direct relationships with him.