If Kyrie Irving plays for the Mavericks next season, he’ll do so under a new team president, general manager and head coach, not to mention new assistant coaches and medical personnel.
His future has been a hot topic since this month’s hiring of Masai Ujiri and Mike Schmitz, who have been glowingly optimistic about the possibility of pairing a healthy Irving on the court with Cooper Flagg, a reality that didn’t come to fruition this season because the nine-time All-Star focused on rehabilitating his torn left ACL.
In an interview with The Dallas Morning News on Friday, Schmitz was asked about Irving’s perception of the franchise following the wave of changes in leadership. The new general manager didn’t want to speak for Irving, but he expressed more enthusiasm about the guard’s involvement with the team going forward.
“Super excited, and at least from my perspective, he’s looking forward to the dynamic with him and Cooper on the floor together,” Schmitz said. “That’s something we’re really, really excited to see. Just his shotmaking, his ability to create offense, his savvy, his IQ, his experience. He’s won at the highest levels of this sport.”
Irving is under contract for at least one more season and has the ability to become an unrestricted free agent next summer if he opts out of his player option for 2027-28. He just turned 34 in March and will be roughly a year and seven months removed from his last NBA game by the time the 2025-26 regular season starts.
“Being around him so far out here, the competitive level and the attention to detail and the leadership is really, really impressive,” Schmitz said. “So again, I don’t want to speak for him, but our conversations we’ve had have been great. You can feel the energy and the enthusiasm and the authenticity in who he is, and I’m really, really thankful to come into this building every day with a guy like that.”