While most eyes in the Dallas Mavericks' fanbase are on Dallas' Summer League squad in Las Vegas featuring Cooper Flagg, Kyrie Irving recently gave an intriguing update in regards to the progress of his ACL rehab. Irving said this on a livestream over a month ago, but the clip just recently surfaced online of him telling fans to hold back any expectations for when he could potentially return next season, as he wants to come back feeling even better than before.
At this point, there's no point in trying to project when Irving may come back to Dallas' lineup, given how far he is from returning still, and all Mavericks fans can do is hope and pray Irving comes back before the playoffs next season with enough time to ramp up. However, there could be a negative side effect of this injury update from Irving, that is, if he truly does end up taking longer than expected to return from injury.
If Irving doesn't come back before the playoffs next season and the Mavericks simply aren't able to gain enough offensive firepower to be competitive once the playoffs next season, then general manager Nico Harrison could use Irving being injured as an excuse for having a lost season. When Harrison traded Luka Doncic, he was making an all-in move, so he should be judged by ownership for how the team is doing in the immediate aftermath of that trade.
Kyrie Irving's recent injury update gives Nico Harrison more job security
Harrison used the injury card toward the end of last season when talking about how is vision was never fully fulfilled, and this could be the same case next season if Irving struggles to return to the court longer than initially projected. Dallas was undoubtedly plagued by injuries following the Doncic trade last season, but Harrison didn't help the situation by trading for an already injured Caleb Martin at the time and swapping one somewhat injury-prone superstar in Doncic for a very injury-prone superstar in Anthony Davis.
Mavericks fans have been calling for Harrison's job since February 1, and this won't change anytime soon, but getting Flagg definitely relieves some of this burden for Harrison. It's highly doubtful Harrison would get fired before this season starts, but if the Mavericks were to have a disastrous start and firing Jason Kidd or Harrison is on the table, it would be interesting to see if Irving's injury would act as a blanket of security for Harrison because of the full potential of the roster he constructed never being fully realized.
This isn't sweet music to the ears for any Mavericks fans, but this is a situation that will have to play out with time before any sort of discourse over if Harrison could actually get fired or not could be started, as the Mavericks won't be firing him immediately after the massive vote of confidence governor Patrick Dumont gave to Harrison by letting him pull the trigger on the Doncic trade.
Harrison should've already been fired, but that's simply not how the NBA works when one makes a deal of such colossal proportions, and it will be extremely interesting to see if he can rekindle trust with any of Dallas' fanbase as this season progresses, as it certainly won't be easier with Irving sidelined for a great period of time next season.
