Kyrie Irving hasn’t played a game in over a year. He’s coming off a torn ACL suffered during the 2025 season. And somehow, new Mavericks head coach Dusty May is already treating him like a second voice in the huddle.
That’s what happens when your star point guard is a future Hall of Famer and your coaching staff is running its first NBA season.
May was hired this offseason to replace Jason Kidd, and he brought an interesting background. He coached at Florida Atlantic and turned that program into a Final Four darling. But the NBA is different. The players are faster. The egos are bigger. The margin for error is smaller. So May is doing something smart. He’s leaning on the guy who has been through it all.
“Kyrie knows what it takes to win a championship so as a first time NBA coach I’m going to lean on him,” May said in a post on the Mavericks’ official X account. “He’s one of the greatest point guards to ever play our game, he’s a jazz musician.”
The jazz musician part might sound like an odd compliment, but it makes sense. Irving plays with rhythm, improvisation, and creativity. He’s never been a system guy. He’s a feel guy. And in a league where young stars like Cooper Flagg need a veteran presence to help them adjust, Irving can be that bridge.
Rebuilding around Flagg, but keeping Irving around
There was plenty of talk that Irving would be traded this summer. The Mavericks moved on from Luka Doncic in 2025, and when Irving went down with the ACL injury, it felt like the tear-down was complete. Dallas ended up with the No. 1 pick and drafted Flagg, a generational forward who won Rookie of the Year in his first season. That made the rebuild official.
But trading Irving never made total sense. Not from a culture standpoint. Not from a roster standpoint. The Mavericks need shot creation. They need ball-handling. They need someone who can take pressure off a 20-year-old star. Irving fits all of that, even if he is 33 years old and coming off a major injury.
The team has not confirmed whether Irving will be ready for opening night. ACL rehabs are unpredictable. But early reports suggest he’s ahead of schedule. And if he can get back to 80 percent of what he was before the injury, that’s still an elite NBA player.
What Irving looks like after a torn ACL
The last time we saw Irving on the court, he was carrying a ridiculous workload. After the Doncic trade, the Mavericks asked him to do everything. Scoring. Playmaking. Leadership. The load was too heavy. He went down with the ACL tear and missed all of last season.
Now the question is speed. Irving’s game has never been about raw athleticism. He’s crafty, shifty, and surgical. Those skills tend to age better than pure explosiveness. But ACL tears can affect lateral movement, which matters for a guard who relies on crossovers and stop-start changes of direction.
Fans online have been split on the Irving-Flagg pairing. Some think it’s a waste of a roster spot if the team is rebuilding. Others think Irving can mentor Flagg the way he mentored Jayson Tatum in Boston, minus the drama. Time will tell.
May might be a first-time NBA coach. But he’s smart enough to know that keeping Irving in the fold gives him a player who has won at the highest level. And in a league where chemistry can fall apart fast, that kind of experience is hard to replace.
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