Former Cleveland Cavaliers superstar Kyrie Irving is suddenly in the middle of a bitter implosion with the Dallas Mavericks.
After a torn ACL in March 2025 put Irving on Dallas' injury list for the majority of the 2025-26 season, the Mavs aimed to find a temporary replacement until the All-Star returned. Unfortunately, the Mavericks may have already sealed their fate this year before Irving ever had a chance to impact the team.
Despite winning the first-overall pick in this summer's draft to add Duke standout Cooper Flagg, the Mavericks are one of the worst teams in the NBA with a 3-8 record through the first 11 games. That record, along with the complete distrust of the fanbase, Dallas general manager Nico Harrison has been removed from his position.
The departure of Harrison seemed inevitable after a shocking trade sent generational talent Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers less than one season after reaching the NBA Finals alongside Irving. Now, Irving is rehabilitating from ACL surgery with a grim prospect of the team he may join when he is healthy.
The Mavericks are falling apart, and Irving needs to get out
Whether Dallas accepts the need for a full rebuild or not, Irving needs to escape the disaster incoming. After seven years with the Cavaliers, Irving requrested a trade in the 2017 summer and eventually landed with the Boson Celtics. Since then, he has struggled to find a new NBA home, jumping from teams with constant turmoil following him. At times, he certainly had caused much of his own pain. With Dallas, however, everything is out of Kyrie's hands.
Leadership with the Mavericks is anything but stable. Dallas has named two interim general managers, but the actual vision of the franchise is murky at best. With Flagg, the Mavs may pivot to a full rebuild, but Irving and Anthony Davis are sitting on the sidelines injured with little trade value. Finding a suitable partner for either star may be more than temporary GMs can be expected to navigate.
Irving was expected to be a late-season addition to lead a final push towards the playoffs for Dallas. A duo of Flagg and Davis was hoped to be enough talent to lead the Mavs to a postseason position before Irving returned, especially with a valuable supporting cast around the two frontcourt stars.
Sadly, with Klay Thompson's regression and the leadership's drama, the Mavericks are in no-man's land, leaving Irving once again in a bad situation needing a way out.
The Cleveland Cavaliers may still be the only franchise to bring the best out of Kyrie Irving. His latest stops have materialized into unhappy headlines and major change. Irving landed in Dallas and reached the Finals with one of the greatest current players in the league. In roughly one-and-a-half years since that playoff run, Luka is with Irving's old teammate LeBron James scoring unreal numbers while Irving's squad falls apart at the seams with no signs of recovery.