Appearing on the Showtime With Michael Cooper Lakers Podcast (YouTube link), Mavericks wing Klay Thompson said Kyrie Irving is the “toughest guy” he’s ever guarded and has “no weaknesses in his game,” as Ashish Mathur of DallasHoopsJournal.com relays.
“It’s nice to be his teammate,” Thompson said of Irving. “You know, Kyrie and I had so many battles during those years at Golden State. We saw Cleveland four straight years in the Finals, three of them being with Kai.
“And I’ll never forget, I know you always used to check the best offensive player, and some nights there’s just nothing you could do when you’re guarding a guy like Michael (Jordan) or Larry (Bird) or Isiah (Thomas). Same thing with Kyrie.”
Here’s more on the Mavs:
- Irving, who tore the ACL in his left knee in early March, provided a minor injury update last week, saying he was “healing up great.” Overtime released a short video (Twitter link) on Sunday showing Irving practicing floaters and jump shots at the NBPA practice facility in New York (hat tip to Grant Afseth of Dallas Hoops Journal). Afseth notes that the nine-time All-Star appeared to be “moving comfortably on the court.”
- After waiving and stretching 2023 first-round pick Olivier-Maxence Prosper on Friday, Dallas will now carry a $3.2MM dead-money cap hit each of the next three years, tweets Keith Smith of Spotrac. Only about $1MM of that total came from stretching Prosper’s contract; the other $2.2MM is owed to JaVale McGee, who was cut by the Mavericks a couple years ago.
- In case you missed it, multiple reporters have indicated that P.J. Washington is likely to sign an extension with Dallas now that he’s officially eligible to do so, though the exact terms remain unclear.
Man Javale McGee is still on the books???
Poor Klay. Tried to go full mercenary and join the finals team, and now whats he left with?
Four rings, set for life and probably happy after being disrespected by the warriors. Also on a ball club with a brighter future.
Really? You dont think theres annnnyyyy part of him that feels screwed by the way things played out in Dallas? Like I get it that he felt disrespected, I would say the 200M+ super max he got paying him to rehab was doing right by him, but thats neither here nor there.
I think he was a little full of shiet to not understand why the team couldnt just hand him a huge deal with no regard for caps/aprons/his production/team building limitations. Like did he want respect, or did he want to win, because there was no path to a winner with Klay on the like 35M+ per season contract he wanted.
I would say Stephs in the same boat. Dudes a billionaire, if not yet, then soon. If he wants respect he can keep taking up 40% of the teams cap space, or he can take waaaayyy less, since if Stephs at 20M the team has real cap space to sign a FA star to play next to him at the end. It sucks because Steph deserves far more than hes made, but these are the rules for building rosters in the NBA. Does he really care about winning above anything else? Are rings really his only motivation left?
Cooper Flagg is an interesting piece to build around long term, but I would bet a lot of money that DAL is way worse than GSW this season unless Steph misses the whole season. AD is injury prone, and the team has nobody on the roster who can be an initiator besides Dlo. Its a bad roster that they wont get value for some of the pieces on it until they arent worth much in all likelihood.
Too many peeps poo pooing dallas’ chances this year.
Latent anti-nico bias maybe
Whos initiating offense? And thats why people are thinking they are not contenders. Could they be good next year if KI looks like his old self coming back off a major leg injury heading into his mid 30s? Maybe.
Is AD going to be able to play games? Yeah thats what I thought…
I mean based on recent history Nico is the worst exec outside NOP. He shat the bed, and then acted like it was the plan all the time when he hit the 1.7% runner runner out. Luck doesnt obfuscate all the poor decision making. Most recently giving KI a giant pile of money to rehab on a super player friendly contract.
You can’t say Nico shat the bed with poor moves out of one side of your mouth, and out of the next side understand all the moves he did to put them into a championship position. He did it once and now he’s done it again.
Doesn’t matter how he got there, I’d rather have AD/Cooper Flag/Max Christe over Luka donic on a 350m contract.
@Aplus23
Lol, as if the Mavs are actually “into a championship position”?
That’s absurd.
Dallas are not in a championship position. From this point on, how many playoff series will AD and Kyrie win in Dallas? I’d say not more than 2.
So he drafted Luka in ’18? I mean thats what put them in champ contention. Was he in charge when they pooped the bed with Brunson? Even building a roster around Luka wasnt rocket science. Luka needs a certain kind of player, so you go get that guy.
IMO, Luka shat the bed by not getting his butt in shape.
In the whole history of the league I can’t think of one chronically out of shape player being the number one option on a championship team.
Maybe Shaq, but he was co-star with Kobe.
Anti-Nico-bias is still, since he made the dumbest trade of all time and after that Tried everything NOT to get the draft pick that happened to bekomme Flagg.
Dallas did everything to get to the Playoffs with a team that had no chance to win instead of trying to be lottery bound.
Harrison got Flagg while he failed trying everything NOT to get him. Thats maximum incompetence
You get paid the max you can for your profession, it’s not a hobby.
GSW would have given him 3/42M after trying to land PG and Lauri. Its not like he got what he thought he deserved. Sometimes these guys cant take market value from the place where they are because of the history. Klay got a fair contract, but wanted a lot more, and wanted it first.
This season…maybe. and beyond, definitely not.
GSW have all the pieces to either make some moves for additional help, or reset when Steph retires and do a rebuild with their own picks.
> GSW have all the pieces to either make some
> moves for additional help, or reset when Steph
> retires and do a rebuild with their own picks.
I like the “glass is half-full” perspective. The “half empty” one says there are no moves available that move them into Championship contention, best case is 2nd round exit :—(
They were barely a 2nd round exit with 4 of the top 7 players in the rotation injured. I think with health they can at least flirt with WCF. The roster this season is much deeper for making it through the regular season, and will give them more looks to throw at teams in the playoffs. They have the picks to go and get a real piece too.
The rebuild scenario is the half empty version since you dont get picks and players for Steph when he retires. The rebuild will be slow to begin with since the team wont get to cash in its biggest asset as part of it. Im cool with this though since I never want Steph traded somewhere else.
@chapmansvacuum, I have to point this out that your outlook on the Warriors future, including the decisions that ownership makes, is based on the assumption that age doesn’t matter. This is, literally, the oldest team in the history of the NBA. Whatever these late 30’s guys did last year, expect this season to be worse, and the next season more so.
Current Vegas odds on GSW winning the title are +2800 to +3500, about 45-46 wins. And, barring a huge trade, it’ll be lower next season. And Vegas’ thinking is consistent with what ownership thinks. Old players don’t win titles. This is a billion dollar business that must make decisions for the long-term. Two more seasons (at the most), and the rebuild starts.
Listen to what Lacob and Dunleavy keep on saying: GSW isn’t trading away future picks and youth to win a few more games this season. If they can get LeBron for Jimmy and a 2026 or 2027 FRP, they’ll do it, but they won’t do anything to limit the team in 2028 and beyond.
I mean Draymonds the real worry. Most of the others have more depth to rest them. It doesnt matter to me if they sign a bunch of vet guys that are older on one year deals. The players under longer term control are younger outside the main 3. I think Curry might be better now than he was at 29. Like the context of the types of lineups and players matters, and Steph is still just as good in a far less conducive to success for his game environment.
The vegas odds havent adjusted because they cant factor in Melton/Horford until the deals happen. I would say they win 48-50 while trying to rest the older guys. If things break great for health you might get as high as 54.
I dont think they would unload the full kitty for a player over 30, but I do think they want to use some picks from the next couple seasons where they are trying to get some help that is 20 something. This could be double accomplished if you did a deal for Herb and Trey after NOP face plants. You give up more picks for both, but you have a great supporting cast waiting for a star to sign in FA when Steph does hang it up.
They also have the financial might to go in just about any direction that makes the most sense for the team. Great revenue still especially if they get some playoff gates.
Chapman, I can’t avoid the cliche: you can’t beat Father Time. I’m just trying to tell you that Lacob and Dunleavey are acting on reason and probability, not optimism. When your core is 38,36, and 36, you’re getting worse, not better. Disagree if you will, but there is a mountain of historical evidence: declining performance and availability are unavoidable. It’s not for 1 game, but for a full season and the playoffs. That’s what the rest of the world sees.
Steph is declining (especially defensively). He’s awesome, but he’s not a Top 5 player anymore, and, probabilistically, he’s not a Top 10 player in 2 years.
IMO, Steph’s aging *probably* cost us the Minnesota playoff series. Steph missed the last 4.5 playoff games of the season from, per the medical report, an “over-use” injury. Calling it “random” is unrealstic. At 38 years old, he bore way too high a burden after the All-Star break, and into the playoffs.
(You can disagree with the bookmakers, but be aware they always have the best available forward-looking info, everything about the high probability of moves around Horford, Melton, JK, etc is built-in. Futures odds are my obsession, and I’ve been monitoring GSW odds all summer. I don’t think there will be any movement before the season starts.
It’s probabilities. Steph (38), Draymond (36), and Jimmy (36) will *probably* each play between 55-65 games this season, 1-2 minutes less than last season, and perform slightly worse. I’m sure Lacob and Dunleavey would take gladly take that.
@ChapmansVacuum
Steph’s current net worth is $240 million (not even 1/4 of being a billionaire), and his contract is through 2026-27. So it will be 2 years before we know if he’s willing to take a pay cut. I wouldn’t if I was him!
Um no. The contract he has extended off of was 240M alone. He has 413M in career earnings so far with another 120M already locked in. On top of that he has been doing a ton of endoresments for years and years now as one of the NBAs most popular players.
Then you have the fact that Curry is now its own sub brand at UA owned in a partnership between Steph and UA similar to Jordan brand. The Curry brand will probably bring him in a B by itself.
He has the TV production company making several shows now as well.
So he is at around 500M in NBA earnings, and hundreds of millions more already in endorsements. So like I said he is either at or closing in on 1B in money earned with lots more coming. Does he need the extra 40M a season in 3 years when hes almost 40, or does he want to give the team cap room to star hunt so he could maybe win another ring?
@ChapmansVacuum why are you still pining for Klay Thompson? He is washed and can’t play defense anymore, he isn’t a fit on GSW. He’s literally Kyle Korver now, a shooter off the bench.
“Poor Klay” what are you talking about? He’s literally the guy who should get the least amount of sympathy, he has 4 rings and over $300M in career NBA salary and dates Megan thee Stallion, while being basically Kyle Korver on court from 2021-on. If anything I hate Klay now, out of jealousy haha
His contract was for $215 mil, not 240. Multiple sites that calculate net worth have his net worth at $240 mil, and say he will “eventually” have earned $500 mil by the end of his career..
Mavs in 5 this yr pal, one of the deepest teams in the league pal
Whatever your smoking should cost more for how good it is….
Megan Thee Stallion for the win.
Is it possible to have too many forwards on your roster ??