The Dallas Mavericks are clawing for positioning in the Western Conference standings right now, as they have lost two games in a row after winning five of six games right before that. Dallas is currently the No. 9 seed in the Western Conference with a 31-28 record, and they are just 1.5 games behind the No. 6 seed, the LA Clippers.
Dallas missing the Play-In Tournament and finding a way to be a top-six seed would be ideal, as the play-in is filled with unpredictability and everything is on the line. Depending on what seed you are, your season could be over in just one game, and even if you do find a way to make it out of the play-in, you'd end up playing one of the top two teams in the West in a first-round series, which would be another high-pressure uphill battle.
Kyrie Irving is someone who is used to strong end-of-season pushes, as he helped the Mavericks go beserk over the final two months of the season last year to skyrocket through the standings and secure the No. 5 seed in the West, and he is playing at an elite level once again. Irving enters tonight's game against the Charlotte Hornets after a 35-point masterclass against Luka Doncic and the Los Angeles Lakers, but it remains overwhelmingly clear that he doesn't get the respect he deserves.
The Kyrie Irving disrespect is going way too far
The disrespect this season started when Irving was snubbed from the All-Star Game's initial selection (even though he ended up replacing Anthony Davis due to injury), and this disrespect has overflowed into how he is thought of by the national media. Irving is often forgotten when he is getting compared to his peers, and the blatant disrespect when gauging his effect on the game continued into FanSided's annual NBA rankings in which they rank the top 99 players in the NBA.
Irving ended up at No. 40 on this list, with several players in front of him who he undoubtedly deserved to be in front of. Some players around him (and in front of him) who Irving can make an argument to be ahead of include LaMelo Ball, Tyler Herro, Chet Holmgren, Amen Thompson, and Alperen Sengun.
A conversation can even be had that Irving can compete with players like Jalen Williams, Ja Morant, Damian Lillard, De'Aaron Fox, and Darius Garland for a spot in the top 30, and his on-court excellence continues to get overshadowed. He is coming off a season in which he helped the Mavericks reach the NBA Finals for the first time since 2011, and over the last few months in which Dallas has been without their superstar (Doncic and now Anthony Davis), Irving has been the one to weather the storm and steer the ship regardless of who is on the floor next to him.
He remains one of the best leaders in the NBA on and off the court at this point in his career, and his game speaks for itself. Irving has some of the best ball-handling skills of all time, and he is one of the most skilled players to ever touch a basketball. He is unstoppable once he gets into the paint, as he can finish strong with either hand despite being undersized, and he is quietly one of the best shooters in the NBA as well.
This season for Dallas, Irving is averaging 24.9 points, 4.8 rebounds, 4.7 assists, and 1.3 steals per game while shooting 47.5 percent from the field and 41.1 percent from downtown, and he continues to showcase why he deserves to be in the same sentence as the aforementioned players.
Irving is having a season in which he deserves to be on one of the All-NBA Teams due to the way he is leading this team amid one of the wildest injury crises this league has ever seen, and those who continue to sleep on him will be woken up soon. He thrives in the postseason, and if Davis can get healthy in time for the playoffs, then he and Irving have the opportunity to silence the haters once and for all.
