Kyrie Irving minced no words about the state of the Dallas Mavericks team, using a few colorful adjectives to describe the team’s current positioning in the league. However, the general bent of his outlook was positive during a post-game press conference on Wednesday following a loss to Philadelphia:
“I think that now, again, just where we are in the season and where other teams are positioned already, it kind of looks like a bit of a cluster****, to be honest with you.”
The Dallas Mavericks are currently 37-40, aiming for a play-in game, as Irving was added to the roster roughly two months ago. Odds makers currently have the team with a 14-18% chance of making the playoffs, which are pretty grim stats for a team sporting Irving and Luka Doncic on its roster. Mavericks are currently 3-7 in their last 1o games, with five games left in the regular season.
Irving was traded in the midst of pretty poor results with the Brooklyn Nets, which included the distractions of off-court drama following Kyrie’s sharing of a film on his social media, which featured anti-semitic sentiments. He went on to apologize for any offense, stating that he was not aware of the offensive undertones of the film and meant no harm or hatred in his post. Yet he stood firm on his right to share the content. Eventually, in a joint effort with the team, they each pledged $500,000 to organizations combating religious hatred.
Kyrie Irving went on to note that the issues with the team moving forward may have more to do with establishing roles and relationships: “Who do guys go to on the team to confide in off the court? Who is our coaching staff as people? What do they expect from me? The big question is, why they traded for me? And you know, what does it look like for the future? That’s the big question.”
With a back-to-back weekend at Miami and Atlanta, Kyrie seems to be more focused on the bigger picture than the pressures of a short season:
“The realistic view is that when I came here was that this was going to be a growing process. This was for the long term. This was for something that is bigger than ourselves. We can’t just be a championship team overnight, especially for me coming here. I think I’ve wrapped my head around that aspect of it. I’m at peace with it. It doesn’t mean that I’m giving up on the season or any of my teammates are.”
