In February of 2023, Kyrie Irving shook up the NBA landscape by demanding a trade out of Brooklyn.
The eight-time All-Star attracted a handful of suitors, including the Lakers, Suns and Clippers, per The Athletic. The Mavericks ultimately came away with Irving, and the pieces that they gave up to get him look shockingly low in retrospect.
That trade is looking pretty good today. The Mavericks are in the NBA Finals, and Irving is going to be the third-best player behind Luka Doncic and Jayson Tatum in the series. There is no way that they could have made it to this point without pulling off that move.
Here is our original grade for the trade, and what the Nets and Mavericks would receive in a new grade a year later.
MORE: Picks, predictions, and odds for 2024 NBA Finals
What did the Mavericks trade for Kyrie Irving?
Mavericks get:
- Kyrie Irving
- Markieff Morris
Nets get:
- Spencer Dinwiddie
- Dorian Finney-Smith
- 2029 first-round pick (unprotected)
- 2027 and 2029 second-round pick
Original grades in the Kyrie Irving trade
The Irving trade received mixed reactions from a national perspective.
On the low end, ESPN’s Kevin Pelton gave the trade a D grade for the Mavericks. Our Gilbert McGregor was on the high end, giving Dallas a B+ and Brooklyn a B-.
McGregor wrote that “in a Western Conference that’s seemingly wide-open, the Mavericks have now made a move that could separate them from the middle of the pack and push them toward the upper echelon of contenders in the West.”
That ended up being a spot-on prediction. The West was indeed more competitive than ever — only five games in the standings separated the No. 4 through 10 seeds. The Irving trade took Dallas over the top and landed it in the Finals.
McGregor didn’t like the trade nearly as much for the Nets, predicting that it could potentially lead to the team trading Kevin Durant and spiraling downward. He also questioned the acquisition of Dinwiddie, suggesting that they should instead push for a young piece like Josh Green or Jaden Hardy. That analysis ended up looking good as well.
New Mavericks grade in the Kyrie Irving trade
Even if this is as far as the Mavs ever get with Irving, he was a steal for the price that they paid.
Irving has been nothing short of magnificent since coming to Dallas. He averaged 25.6 points per game during the 2023-24 regular season and finished seventh in Clutch Player of the Year voting thanks to his tough shot-making at the end of games.
That has been the secret sauce to getting the Mavericks to the Finals. They’ve beaten extremely good defenses because he and Doncic have been impossible to stop in crunch time.
MORE: Kyrie Irving’s impressive record in closeout games
Irving has also been as locked-in on defense as ever. He’s been considered a target in previous years, but his effort and toughness on that end of the floor have held up.
Most importantly, Irving has avoided major injury in Dallas. He did miss 24 games during the 2023-24 regular season, but he’s averaged 40.2 minutes per game during the playoffs and allowed the team to keep one of their stars on the floor at all times.
Finney-Smith was a tough loss, but the Mavericks got a steal in signing Derrick Jones Jr. to a minimum contract, soaking up those wing minutes.
This trade is already looking great for Dallas. If Irving continues to stay healthy and distraction-free, then it could end up becoming an all-time heist.
New Mavericks grade: A
New Nets grade in the Kyrie Irving trade
The Nets were in a tough position at the time of this trade. Irving’s tenure in Brooklyn was marked more by what he did off the court than on it, and he was probably going to leave as a free agent that summer if they didn’t trade him.
Still, this was not a good return. The Nets got two aging players to try and keep the ship afloat, which did not happen.
The Nets reportedly wanted Dinwiddie in this trade. The Mavs sold high on him —his 40.5 percent from 3 in Dallas hasn’t been matched since leaving. He exited Brooklyn on poor terms, getting sent out a year later in exchange for Dennis Schroder.
Finney-Smith hasn’t worked out well in Brooklyn either. The Nets acquired way too many wings on their roster, leading to a role on the bench for him to start this season. His defensive impact has been muted because the team is such a mess on that end of the floor. Now, he’s a 31-year-old veteran on a team going nowhere.
All of that led to the Nets finishing with an awful 32-50 record, getting the third pick in the draft and having to ship it over immediately to the Rockets. It was a disastrous scenario and one that still hasn’t ended — Houston has control over Brooklyn’s picks in 2025 and 2027.
Those Mavs draft picks also aren’t looking great. The Nets were hoping that the Irving trade would backfire, Doncic would ask out of Dallas and those picks would end up in the lottery. Instead, it looks as if Doncic is staying put and beginning what could be a very long run on a contending team. He will be 30 years old when that 2029 pick conveys and still likely playing at an extremely high level.
This might have been the best that the Nets could have gotten at the time for Irving. But they should have at least prioritized getting younger players to help rebuild their team.