By Trading For Kyrie Irving, The Dallas Mavericks Begin an Incredibly Dangerous Team Building Experiment

Last week, Kyrie Irving demanded a trade from the Brooklyn Nets once they offered him a max contract extension that had irregular stipulations. The Nets wasted absolutely no time accommodating his demands and immediately sent him to Texas.

Official:

Kyrie Irving to the Dallas Mavericks.

Spencer Dinwiddie, Dorian Finney-Smith, 2029 first-round pick and two second-round picks in 2027 and 2029 to the Brooklyn Nets.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) February 6, 2023

This is the biggest trade of the Luka Doncic era.

For years, it was obvious Luka needed a playmaker next to him. That was made evident last season when Jalen Brunson stepped up to take pressure off of Luka offensively but for most of his career, Luka has been surrounded by guys who don’t dribble.

Luka has the highest usage rate in the NBA. Kyrie can help take the ball out of his hands and help make some of the decisions in the half-court. They’re also both in Top 10 in iso scoring which is valuable in the postseason when defenses step up and scoring in the halfcourt becomes most difficult.

We saw a similar version of this team when the Houston Rockets acquired Chris Paul and the team was one game away from beating the Golden State Warriors and making the finals so we know this could work. We’ve seen it.

Unfortunately, Chris Paul and Kyrie Irving are astronomically different people which is where the problems emerge. We can start with Kyrie being an antisemitic holocaust denier who spends most of his free time posting Alex Jones clips. How long until Kyrie calls out Mavs owner, Mark Cuban, for being an ungodly Jew or whatever?

It’s also important to note that Luka and Dorian Finney-Smith are genuinely good friends so trading away his bestie for a guy who has alienated almost all of his previous teammates only works if they win games. They start losing and the Mavs might have to prepare for Luka’s trade request.

But that’s what makes this trade an experiment. If the two stars work out and make it to the Western finals then I’m sure they’d have no problem re-signing Kyrie and running it back for the next half-decade.

And if it doesn’t work out, the Mavs trading Dinwiddie and Finney-Smith opens up cap space for them to acquire a big name that doesn’t spend their evenings watching Nazi propaganda. I’d argue every team should look for players who aren’t Ben Shapiro stans.

How does the Kyrie Irving trade affect the Brooklyn Nets?

There has been a strange anti-Joe Tsai narrative coming out of this trade. People believe Tsai tried to end Kyrie’s career after Kyrie promoted an antisemitic documentary. That then turned into people hating him because the Chinese government uses his face recognition software to entrap Muslims.

And this is in no way a defense of Tsai but the NBA discourse seems obsessed with China for no reason at all. Joe Tsai is an evil billionaire because every billionaire is evil but he is in no way more responsible for the atrocities the Chinese government commits than Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are responsible for the atrocities the American government commits.

The point is, Joe Tsai isn’t *more* corrupt than any of the other 29 NBA team owners. It’s not like Kyrie was posting Black Lives Matters support and anti-police rhetoric and was punished for protesting.

The man was out here posting videos with fake Hitler quotes and Alex Jones conspiracy bullshit. Tsai didn’t punish Kyrie for standing up for an important cause. Kyrie was a straight-up bigot. He is not a victim of any of this.

We can all disagree with the actions of Joe Tsai in regard to his relationship with the Chinese government without tying it to his handling of one of his most expensive employees spiraling out and posting weirdo shit.

As far as the actual basketball goes, the Nets have already replaced Kyrie.

Nothing funny around here, just another Cam Thomas 40 piece for Brooklyn.

Do the Nets have a diamond in the rough?

47 PTS | 4 REB | 7 3PM

(Via @NBA) pic.twitter.com/1sEEFUmoj5

— SLAM (@SLAMonline) February 7, 2023

Cam Thomas has scored 47 and 44 points in back-to-back games. Kyrie’s scoring has been replaced quite easily and you don’t have to deal with Cam posting his favorite excerpts from Mein Kampf.

The only real problem for the Nets is Ben Simmons committing more fouls than made buckets but Dorian Finney-Smith is in town to take Simmons’s minutes.

The Nets are a significantly better team now which means we’re like, a week away from Kevin Durant demanding a trade or tearing an ACL or some other catastrophic season-ruining bomb.

Until then, good luck to every Brooklyn NFT scammer who now has Spencer Dinwiddie in town as a new mark to steal money from for their little crypto Ponzi schemes.