Former NBA player J.R. Smith — who previously played alongside Kyrie Irving on the Cleveland Cavaliers — thinks the Dallas Mavericks star has an MVP award in his future.
@KyrieIrving for #MVP DONT @ ME FRFR
— JR Smith (@TheRealJRSmith) October 17, 2024
If Smith is talking about the upcoming season, perhaps Irving will have extra motivation to put together a great campaign after how he fared against the Boston Celtics in the 2024 NBA Finals. Against his former team and with a title on the line, Irving wasn’t his usual dominant self from a scoring standpoint.
He averaged just 19.8 points per game on subpar efficiency, as he shot 41.4 percent from the field and 27.6 percent from 3-point range in the championship series. Irving scored 99 points against the Celtics, but it took him that many field-goal attempts (99) to reach that point total in the series, which spanned five games.
Fortunately for Irving, the Mavericks appear to be better on paper right now than they were when they lost to the Celtics. Perhaps most notably, Dallas added one of the league’s all-time great 3-point shooters in Klay Thompson this offseason.
Thompson is coming off a down year with the Golden State Warriors, but he still averaged 17.9 points per game on 38.7 percent shooting from deep during the 2023-24 regular season.
Additionally, the Mavericks inked Spencer Dinwiddie — who will help to bolster the team’s guard depth — to a deal this offseason. He spent the 2023-24 campaign with the Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Lakers.
Irving might not stand out as one of the favorites to capture the MVP award, but considering his gift for putting the ball through the hoop and how the Mavericks’ stint in the 2024 NBA Playoffs ended, it would be bold to already rule him out of the race.
The reigning Western Conference champions will kick off their 2024-25 regular season with a matchup against the San Antonio Spurs on Oct. 24. That contest will also mark Thompson’s regular-season debut with the Mavericks after he spent the first decade-plus of his NBA career in Golden State.
