Getty Kyrie Irving of the Dallas Mavericks.
With the Dallas Mavericks clearly looking ahead to next season, deciding to tank Friday’s meeting with the Chicago Bulls, some news has leaked regarding their offseason plans.
NBA Insider Marc Stein reported Sunday that the Mavs are planning to move on from Christian Wood, who is set to become a free agent this summer.
Stein wrote in his April 9 newsletter that his “up-to-minute sense is that the free agent-to-be will not be asked back after a Wood contract extension was raised as a possibility before the [Kyrie] Irving trade.”
Dallas primarily used Wood to give them a scoring punch off of the bench this season, as 50 of his 67 appearances for the team came as a reserve. In his contract-year the 27-year-old averaged 16.6 points, 7.3 rebounds and 1.1 blocks in about 25.9 minutes per game, while shooting 51.5 percent from the field and 37.6 percent from beyond the arc.
Rumblings of a potential-departure from Wood have been out there for months. Back in February, “The Athletic’s” Tim Cato reported that the big man’s role as a bench player could lead him to leave Dallas.
“Wood’s situation is more complicated: He’s a dangerous scorer who often doesn’t cover enough space defensively to warrant the coaching staff’s trust,” Cato wrote in a February 14 article. “But the Mavericks remain in need of his minutes on this roster, even if Wood might not be thrilled with the limited bench role he’s been assigned and will almost certainly depart this summer.”
Mavs Expected to Offer Kyrie Irving 3 or 4 Year Deal
Another key aspect of Stein’s Sunday newsletter was the impending free agency of Kyrie Irving. Unlike wood, it sounds like the team actually has interest in keeping the 31-year-old guard around.
Stein wrote that the Mavericks are expected to offer Irving a contract spanning three or four years.
He added that many league insiders have “considerable skepticism” that the Mavs “have the leverage” to offer him a two-year deal.
Kyrie Irving Understands Mavericks’ Growing Process
Though there had been a ton of speculation regarding Dallas’ late-season skid and how it’d affect Irving’s free agency decision, it seems as if the star guard understands that the Mavericks are in a growth stage. He recently said so when speaking to reporters.
“I think the realistic view is that when I came here, this was going to be a growing process,” Irving said via Sports Illustrated’s Grant Afseth, after the March 28 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers. “This was for the long term, and this was for something that’s bigger than ourselves, and we can’t just be a championship team overnight, especially me coming here. So I think I’ve wrapped my head around that aspect of it. I’m at peace with it. It doesn’t mean that I’m giving up on this season or any of my teammates are, but we know where we realistically are, and our destiny is in some other team’s hands losing games. So we just got to control what we can control and focus on the next few possessions that we have in these next games against some really good teams that want to position themselves for the playoffs. We’re fighting for a spot, so I look forward to the challenge. But again, in the last six minutes of the game, I felt like we could have been better clear, including myself.”
Mavericks’ Kyrie Irving was asked if there’s enough time to build the necessary chemistry in the final few games, given the scramble the standings has caused.
“It’s been a scramble since I’ve been here. So, trying to fill in roles that kind of fill in from other people. And I…