Perhaps to contextualize Tim’s comments a bit more: the Mavs season is an absolute trainwreck, they will go from the conference Finals last year to missing the playin this year, and will have mortgaged their entire franchise for the privilege of having Kyrie for 7 weeks as opposed to just extending Brunson and keeping Dorian Finney Smith, Spencer Dinwiddie and FOUR first round picks
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To borrow from How I Met Your Mother, Kyrie is on the wrong side of the Hot/Crazy Scale. His talent and play (Hot) is not worth all of the weird off-court drama (Crazy).
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Honestly, Kyrie’s problems are sort of immaterial to their demise - it’s what they messed up first in order to see him as a solution, then the cost they paid to get him
He’s been good, available (a rarity for him) and quiet (all you can hope for)
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Fair enough. Add all of what it took to get him into the “Crazy” section and you get a wildly out-of-scale situation.
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Don’t get me wrong - if I were running an NBA team, possibly even higher on my priority list than “don’t sign Hayes or Bagley” would be “stay out of the Kyrie Irving business”, for obvious reasons there’s no reason to detail here. I just think the largest of those reason (his tendency to be hurt, his tendency to get involved in a ton of BS to take himself off the court, his tendency to just blow up a team for no reason) aren’t apparent in Dallas.
But I DO think we’re seeing that teams can play good defense with 1 incendiary offense talent that is at best agnostic about defense (Dallas did it last year in the playoffs, Houston did it with Harden, the Cavs with Irving), but you can’t do it with TWO of them.
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Also he sometimes decides not to play and calls it a sabbatical
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Yes, to be fair, I filed that under the larger category of “ton of BS to take himself off the court”.
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Fair. I just like to remind about the incredible amount of gall it takes to use the word “sabbatical” for that.
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Salt in the wound to post highlight videos of a PF who can shoot, defend, and is a multi-year contributor in college. 
Livers was the perfect college player in many ways - versatile, solid fundamentals, good enough to be a plus B10 player, not good enough to declare early. In many ways I am still surprised at his success in the NBA - though it does come with the grain of salt that he’s on a horrible team. But he’s playing well in a rotation role.
In my opinion, this is why I was surprised Houstan got a draft promise and was picked where he was. I felt like you could find guys like Livers, Duncan, etc. deeper in the draft or as UDFA that could hit jumpers and hold their own. I know Houstan is younger and has more hypothetical upside…but I think there are good veterans out there. Will be curious to see how Livers and Houstan careers play out.
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I think Livers COULD have left earlier than he did and still get drafted (probably a year earlier?).
I think Isaiah was an extremely mature kid, with a set of priorities that…I’m not going to say are better or worse than today, because I think the amount of money offered to kids is enough to prioritize…are different than most players today.
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Yes, if he didn’t get hurt (and got a chance to play in the tournament) I could see him having left.
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Injuries played a role for sure, but even if he had left early he wouldn’t have been picked much different than he was. So it didn’t really help/hurt either way. If you can hit threes and are 6-7+ you will get a look.
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Love Isaiah. That was back in the day when you could really kinda get to know a kid on your team, absorb his style, personality, etc. over three-four years. But to be fair to other recent players, he came back to be on a team with a very high ceiling.
I do worry–when we talk about team morale and spirit possibly being lacking–the continual upheaval is going to play a role.
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It feels to me like Isaiah Livers was ready to focus full time on basketball after his sophomore year, and likely would have gone if he were healthy.
It feels to me like the reasons he didn’t go is that with his injury, his pro basketball home was a lot less certain after his sophomore year than it turned out being after his junior year. And luckily for us UM fans, he didn’t have a aversion to college.
It felt to me like his pro prospects were much more certain after his junior year, even with his injury, and much more likely to find a stable pro home. Which I think he’s found!
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One of my guiltiest sports opinions at this moment is my absolute flipping love of Kyrie Irving on the court. He’s an incredible player, an absolute wizard with the ball and the basketball fan in me desperately wants Luka + Irving to work.
Kyrie is not the problem, this Dallas team is the beautiful artistic rendition of a horse’s head and a stick drawing of the torso. I refuse to give up on this duo and hope Dallas can have the opportunity to add good front court players.
I know I’m waxing lyrical about a major @sshole but you just have to appreciate a bit of the art and not the artist. He isn’t a top 5 player, but he’s got some of the best handles in basketball history. He’s, like, the Mesut Ozil of basketball or the Michael Vick or Adrian Peterson (0robably better than all 3). I maintain that Kyrie was one good trade the mavs did make.
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There’s no denying that Kyrie is a top 5 talent, but you can’t deny how the locker room or relationship with the front office has gone downhill everywhere he has gone. Cleveland, Boston and Brooklyn.
I don’t think he’s particularly the problem here. And I don’t think he was the problem in Boston either. He was the harbinger of doom for the Nets.
I’ve heard plenty of reports of locker room disruption by Kyrie when he was at Boston.
He isn’t a problem at Dallas for now. The fact that the trade return was awful for Kyrie’s caliber speak more about how the NBA viewed him off the court. On the court, he would’ve fetched far more than just Finney-Smith, Dinwiddie, 2029 1st round pick and 2027 & 2029 2nd round picks.
KD is a better player than Kyrie and fetched a far better return in Bridges, Crowder, Johnson and multiple 1st round picks.
I mean he was a problem in Boston to the extent her personally made them disband the team
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Kyrie is a great offensive basketball player…that I wouldn’t ever risk my franchise for. But even then, I just didn’t think his skill set aligned well with Luka. You want both of them with the ball in their hands. Then there’s defense…something the Mavs stink at and Kyrie isnt going to help. Their problems are bigger than him, but it was not smart roster management.
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