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DALLAS — Kyrie Irving said Monday night that he told his Dallas Mavericks teammates himself not to let the trade rumors surrounding him get into their locker room.
Irving spoke after scoring 35 points in a 125-122 win over the Indiana Pacers at American Airlines Center. The win moved Dallas to 7-4 through a stretch that has included two games each against the Houston Rockets and San Antonio Spurs and one against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The best things this group has going, Irving said, are its selfless nature and its competitiveness. Asked what has driven the start, he went back to the noise around the team before the season.
“I think we’re smart about our motivation and what motivates us in the locker room,” Irving said. “I think we heard a lot of the noise before the season and some of the predictions. And I’m not gonna say anybody wrote us off because it’s not that serious, but I just think because of the roster that we had and no one really sure about where I was gonna be or where our team was gonna be or some of the trade rumors that continue to circle around our team or circle me, and I think we just laid it right there.”
“And I let the team know out of my own mouth that these trade rumors, anything that’s going on with me, do not let this infiltrate our locker room,” Irving continued. “Don’t let this get in the way of what we have building here. We have a lot of depth. We have a lot of youth, and we should use that to our advantage. But we should not allow any external distractions or any external voices that don’t support us unconditionally or want to see us do well to infiltrate our locker room. So I think that’s one of the contributing factors.”
Kyrie Irving’s Name Has Stayed In Trade Talk Since June
The Mavericks started telling teams in June that Irving was not available, Marc Stein of The Stein Line said Nov. 2, when Dallas was 4-2. Stein said the message to callers has been that “they don’t even want to field your call” on Irving. Most of the chatter, he said, has come from outside the building.
Irving tore his left ACL against Sacramento on March 3, 2025. The 2026-27 season is his first since the injury. He holds a player option for 2027-28, so this is the last guaranteed year of his deal, and he turns 35 in March.
Entering Monday, Irving was averaging 21.4 points in 29.5 minutes through eight games. Against Indiana he made 7 of his 10 3-point attempts, played 38 minutes, and was plus-29 on the second night of a back-to-back.
Ten Mavericks played Monday. Before the injury, Irving said, his minutes ran into the 40s some nights. Having this much depth around him now is night and day, he said.
“So, yeah, you’re seeing us play ten guys, eleven guys at times, and my past few years, especially before I got injured, I was averaging like forty some odd minutes, and it’s just night and day in terms of me being able to go out there and play my best brand of basketball because we have depth and we have guys that are willing to swing the ball,” Irving said. “And it’s not that we didn’t have it before. I’m just saying in terms of just group development and the newness of it, it’s not a lot of selfish basketball that goes on. So I think that’s why we can contribute that to our success.”
Irving Credits Dusty May For Confronting The Mavericks
Mavericks coach Dusty May is in his first season in Dallas after the team fired Jason Kidd this spring. The Mavericks are better when they are hunting, Irving said, and they have not earned anything in the league yet.
“But I think another one is Dusty’s doing a great job of confronting us when we’re not doing things right, where we’re not living up to our standards, and he knows that we’re better when we’re hunting, and that’s what we are,” Irving explained. “We haven’t earned anything in this league yet. We have to consistently do it every night, and that’s how you build your identity in this league and you earn your respect.”
“So we try not to put the carriage before the horse, in a sense, and we just try to take it slow,” Irving added. “And when we’re preparing for games, prepare as though we’re getting ready for the playoffs.”
Irving scored 20 of his points after halftime. One-game plus-minus can be overblown, May said, but not Monday’s.
“His plus-29 tonight was very indicative of how important he is,” May said. “When we were struggling to make shots, and the first half we thought we were generating really good looks, and we just looked a little bit flat. And I thought Kai’s shot-making just kind of righted the ship for us. And we came out in the third quarter and were able to get over the hump a little bit, but he just makes tough shots.”
Irving and Cooper Flagg, who scored a season-high 43, combined for 78 points. Dallas has won three straight.
The Mavericks open a three-game road trip Thursday against the Minnesota Timberwolves at Target Center, with tip-off at 7 p.m. CT. They play in Cleveland on Nov. 14 and Boston on Nov. 15.
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