Irving and Doncic with the Mavs: from favorite duo to flop?

Four days before the NBA trade deadline, news rocked the Association, the league and fans of the best basketball in the world: Kyrie Irving would join Luka Doncic on the Dallas Mavericks.

Almost immediately, the power duo was labeled as one of the best of the current season (and it is) and catapulted the Mavs as one of the favorites to make a long run in the Western Conference Playoffs; However, a month after Doncic and Irving made their on-court debut together, things are far from what the franchise had hoped for and with a week to go before the 2022-23 regular season comes to an end, Dallas is out of Play-in spots, a far cry from a failure as resounding as the Australian point guard’s arrival.

Blaming Irving for what’s happening with Jason Kidd’s team would be the easy thing to do given the track record Kyrie left behind after stints with franchises like the Boston Celtics and more recently the Brooklyn Nets, where off-court scandals put him in the headlines time and time again.

But the numbers make it clear that the Doncic-Irving duo will need time to develop their potential and reach their NBA ceiling, something that all indications are that it won’t happen in the coming days, so it’s worth taking a look at the slump Dallas finds itself in since Kyrie’s arrival….

The clearest indication of the storm the team is embroiled in is their position in the ‘Wild West’.

When the Irving trade was announced, the Mavs were in sixth place in their conference with a 28-26 record; after Wednesday’s loss to the Philadelphia 76ers, the Texans fell to 11th place with a 37-40 record, one game behind the 10th-place Oklahoma City Thunder.

Negative record since Kyrie’s arrival
The Mavs have lost five of their last six games, have a negative record of 8-14 since Kyrie Irving’s arrival in February and 4-9 when the two play together (13 games).

Luka has ‘lowered’ his numbers; Irving has improved them (failed symbiosis).
The relationship of mutual help or support (symbiosis) has not flourished, as of the Doncic-Irving pairing, only the latter has been favored.

Doncic’s numbers, without Irving, were 33.4 points, 9 boards, 8.2 assists, and he registered 50.4% shooting from the field

Doncic, with Irving, has numbers of 33.3 points, 7.8 rebounds, 7.1 assists and 50.6% shooting from the field

On the other side:

Irving, without Doncic, puts up 27 points, 5 boards, 5.3 assists and 48.7% shooting from the field

Irving with Doncic records 27.7 points, 5.3 rebounds, 7.7 assists and 53.6% shooting from the field

While Luka’s numbers are not bad, they do reflect the burden of being forced to share his role as the team’s ‘mastermind’ and leading scorer.

Offensive/defensive performance
Irving’s arrival boosted the Mavs’ offense from seventh to third best offense with an average of 116.4 points per night; however, they have now fallen to 14th in the league with 113.8 points per game.

Their defensive performance also plummeted; before the ‘Irving era’, the Mavs were ninth worst defensively, now they are third worst.

The first unit is also affected
In Luka and Irving’s 13 games (aforementioned 4-9); that is, for 336 minutes, the Mavericks scored 117.3 points per 100 possessions and allowed 113.7 per 100 with Doncic and Irving on the court.

The most-used lineup with the two is Doncic, Irving, Reggie Bullock, Josh Green and Dwight Powell, who played 87 minutes together in eight games. No other combination of five Mavs, including the two stars, has logged more than 38 minutes on the court.

A schedule that doesn’t help
The Mavs have five games remaining and with the exception of the already eliminated San Antonio Spurs, the rest of their opponents are either qualified for the Playoffs or in Play-in contention.

On Saturday they face the Miami Heat, seventh in the East; on Sunday the Atlanta Hawks, eighth in the same conference. On Wednesday, April 5, their opponent will be the Sacramento Kings, already in the Playoffs; two days later they will face the Chicago Bulls, tenth in the East and they will close against the aforementioned Spurs, already eliminated in the West. On paper, things are not looking good for the Mavs.

Encouraging future
So far in the Luka-Irving era, Dallas has scored 120.4 per 100 possessions in Irving’s 632 minutes on the court. Overall, the future looks good if there is patience and confidence in the Mavs’ ability and their top offensive performers (counterintuitive as it may seem), as seen in last Wednesday’s loss to the 76ers, where Doncic and Irving combined to score or assist on 77 of their team’s 108 points.