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There are few, if any, more controversial players in the NBA today than newly minted Dallas Mavericks star Kyrie Irving.
Irving’s talent is undeniably. He may well be the best ball handler the league has ever seen and he’s got a scoring artillery that would make the US army blush.
But off the court, Irving is an entirely different story.
He’s missed countless games over the last three seasons for reasons ranging from injury, to refusing to get vaccinated, to sharing antisemitic propaganda.
When you you sign up for Kyrie Irving, you also sign up all that comes with him.
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban likely knew this when the team acquired Irving in a trade with the Brooklyn Nets on Feb. 5.
The Mavs sent Spencer Dinwiddie, Dorian Finney-Smith and multiple draft picks to Brooklyn in the hopes that giving Luka Doncic another superstar to work with would put them over the top.
There is a catch, however.
Irving has just months remaining on his contract before he becomes a free agent. And both the Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns appear to be lurking.
Many assumed Dallas had discussed the matter with Irving prior to trading for him. But now it appears that’s not actually the case. And Irving isn’t talking about it any further.
Irving was asked about his contract status at his introductory press conference on Monday.
This was his answer:
“I would love to just have the respect of you guys and everybody the rest of the season of just — continuously asking me that just puts unwarranted distractions on us and our team. I’ve dealt with it before and it’s very emotionally draining to ask questions like ‘what’s the long term? What’s the long term? What is it?’
“I will say, from the start of when I came here, there’s been nothing but a warm embrace, nothing but genuine love and nothing but a familiarity of relationships that I could really look to in times of questioning or confusion. I could always go to these guys or ladies in our front office or people that have really made themselves available since I landed in Dallas.
“There’s just a positive note there and just taking it one day at a time. That’s all I can do in this life and what the future holds is really only gonna be dictated on what I do right now and how I prepare for those next steps. And that’s being the best teammate that I can in the locker room, being a great leader out here within the Dallas community, within the NBA and just continuing to be myself and develop. Just putting that to bed and focusing on what we have ahead as a team.”
To his point, the Mavericks have big goals ahead of them and it’s a lot to focus on. But if you’re Cuban or a Mavs fan, you’d probably like to hear some sort of reassurance in there.
Then again, Irving told Celtics fans he was re-signing with them and we all saw how that worked out…