The Dallas Mavericks have acquired Kyrie Irving and their head coach Jason Kidd is excited to see how he will go alongside Slovenian superstar Luka Doncic.
The two seem perfectly matched as Luka has the most first quarter points in the league, while Irving is the clutch king and has the most points in the fourth.
“You can’t ask for a better situation,” Kidd said of the new pair, per Callie Caplan.
Kidd sees Irving filling the hole that Jalen Brunson left but with the utmost respect, thinks Irving will be on another level, and most importantly, give Doncic the support he has so desperately needed.
“He’s played with the best players in the world, and he’s had success doing that,” Kidd said of Irving. “To give Luka an opportunity to come down the court without having to dribble or run every play, this gives us an opportunity to do different things.
“We look back at when we had JB, being able to have a play-maker like that. When you look at Ky — nothing against JB — but Ky is at a different level, so this gives us another weapon.
“Someone’s going to be free. Someone’s going to have the advantage. We play a lot of advantage basketball with just Luka, so now to get that opportunity with Ky, that just gives us another weapon to have the advantage and take advantage of that, and it just comes down to making open shots.”
23-year-old Doncic and 30-year-old Irving have the highest points-per-game average (60.5) of any two NBA players this season.
Irving is set to play his first game for the Mavs on Wednesday night against the Clippers on LAC’s home court.