Mavericks going all in with Ky...

The best way to understand why Kyrie Irving is now a member of the Dallas Mavericks is probably by thinking about who isn’t.

Dennis Smith Jr. isn’t. The Mavs drafted him ninth overall in the 2017 NBA Draft, hoping that the spring-heeled NC State product would develop into their point guard of the future … until they landed Luka Doncic in the 2018 lottery. It wasn’t like the two young ballhandlers clashed or were at each other’s throats — far from it, by all accounts — but once Doncic showed up, it became very clear very quickly to Mavericks brass which prospect they needed to go all-in on.

Kristaps Porzingis isn’t. Dallas’ brain trust shipped Smith, DeAndre Jordan, Wesley Matthews and a pair of first-round draft picks to New York to pry Porzingis loose from the Knicks, believing that a 7-foot-3 unicorn — albeit one rehabbing a ruptured left ACL — could turn into the perfect pick-and-pop partner for the clearly ascendant Doncic. And, in fairness, the Mavs did have (statistically, at least) the best offense in NBA history during their first campaign together. But with injuries costing Porzingis significant portions of his first two seasons and after two straight first-round exits at the hands of the Clippers, a new front office decided that the Latvian giant wasn’t the second superstar Doncic needed to vault the Mavericks to contention.

Jalen Brunson isn’t. An undersized fire hydrant out of Villanova drafted 30 picks after Doncic in that same 2018 draft and deployed mostly as a steady hand off the bench in his first three seasons, Brunson didn’t look like that second banana, either — especially not when he struggled mightily during the 2021 playoff loss to the Clips. Perhaps rattled by that postseason performance, the Mavs elected not to offer Brunson a four-year, $55.5 million contract extension or engage in any negotiations on a new deal before last season. Brunson went on to earn a spot in Dallas’ starting lineup, teaming beautifully with Doncic during the regular season, averaging 32-5-5 through the first three games of the opening round with Doncic sidelined and playing a vital role in Dallas’ first Western Conference finals trip since winning the 2011 title. When he joined the Knicks in free agency — on a deal nearly twice as big as the one Dallas declined to offer him — the Mavs got nothing for him in return.

Since Doncic’s arrival, Dallas has largely won on the strength of the offense he creates and suffered miserably whenever he hasn’t been on the floor to create it. Irving, in theory, provides a significantly higher-end source of supplemental offense than Dinwiddie — a theory supported by the fact the Nets scored at elite or near-elite levels when Irving played without Durant throughout their four seasons in Brooklyn, and outscored opponents by a healthy 2.9 points-per-100 in Irving-no Durant minutes this season before the trade. Dallas’ formula for success requires incinerating opponents when Doncic’s on the floor and just trying to not catch fire themselves when he’s off it. If Irving can keep the offense viable enough for the Mavs to play close to even while Doncic rests, that’d raise their ceiling for this season considerably; in a conference led by the surging Nuggets, but without an evident dominant super-team, that might give them a puncher’s chance of replicating last spring’s run to the West finals.

These are the gambles you find yourself weighing when you feel the pressure that comes with the responsibility to keep a true-blue superstar happy at home. Every failed experiment, every fumbled bag, every missed opportunity brings you one step closer to the kind of existential, superstar-devoid crisis that Dallas hasn’t known in a quarter-century. That anxiety has a way of ratcheting up your risk tolerance; it puts you in a place where you’re wagering on incandescent talent, hoping against hope that you can be the ones who can harness it without reaping the whirlwind. The Mavericks, with their backs to the wall, just rolled the dice on Kyrie Irving. Now, we all wait with bated breath to learn whether they’ve doubled up or lost everything.