The NBA world is still vibrating after news of a major trade broke this weekend.
The Dallas Mavericks traded for Kyrie Irving on Sunday night, sending multiple players and draft picks to the Brooklyn Nets in the deal, as The Dallas Express previously reported.
The Nets agreed to trade Irving to Dallas over other deals that involved NBA stars, including offers from the Los Angeles Lakers and the Phoenix Suns. Brooklyn liked how the package from Dallas fit with Kevin Durant better than the other offers, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski suggested.
The sports columnist also said that while neither team has officially announced the move, Irving will undergo a physical in Dallas on Monday and be available for the Wednesday night game against the Los Angeles Clippers.
The Dallas Express reached out to the Mavericks and was told that no comments would be made at this time.
The trade for Irving has been met with mixed reviews by fans and media members throughout the country.
TNT’s Chris Haynes underscored Irving’s excitement about the move.
“Kyrie Irving is said to be ‘ecstatic’ about the trade to Dallas and looking forward to joining forces with Luka Doncic,” he tweeted.
Many have pointed out how good Dallas will be on offense with two of the league’s top scorers.
“I think he’ll work with Luka immediately,” Colin Cowherd said on Monday morning during a broadcast of Fox Sport 1’s The Herd with Colin Cowherd. “You’re talking about two of the great scorers in the NBA in the last decade. They’re gonna score; they’re gonna score a lot.”
ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith echoed that sentiment on First Take while adding that it improves Dallas’ season outlook:
“Outside of the Denver Nuggets, I don’t see anyone [in the West] you can definitively say is going to take out the Dallas Mavericks.”
Others were more cautious when voicing their approval.
“Thumbs up with question marks,” 105.3 The Fan’s Chris Arnold said as he joined NBC 5 DFW’s Big Game Sunday. “We already know he’s got a history of ‘we just don’t know what to expect out of him,’ but I think the upside is tremendous.”
“And I do like the fact that, if it doesn’t work out initially, the Mavs clear all kinds of cap space,” he continued.
Still, others were more negative.
Tim Cowlishaw of The Dallas Morning News wrote, “honestly the only thing I like about the trade at all, is the club’s willingness to admit a total failure at roster building around Luka Doncic.”
Players have also reacted to the trade, taking it as a sign of the start of the craziness around the annual trade deadline.
Former Maverick Kristaps Porzingis simply tweeted, “WOW,” while many others referenced the randomness the league and its trade line can cause.
LeBron James, who won a championship with Irving in Cleveland, is currently a member of a Lakers team that missed out on making the deal. James’ tongue-in-cheek reaction is worth noting, given its reference to the pair’s complicated history.
“Maybe It’s Me,” he tweeted.
Several fans piled on as they tweeted images of how they imagined James reacting to the news.
Meanwhile, the Nets unloaded another superstar that did not gel with the franchise.
As Tania Ganguli of the New York Times pointed out, the moves have had little reward and leave the franchise in a “state of uncertainty.”
“They never really got to enjoy the fruits of such a big free-agency score,” she wrote, “and now their future is uncertain. In many ways, though, the team lived a murky in-between life, even with the two superstars who came to them four years ago.”
Other New York outlets celebrated Irving’s departure and published headlines like “You Can Mav Him!” and “He’s Your Headache Now!”