Appearing on the Showtime With Michael Cooper Lakers Podcast (YouTube link), Mavericks wing Klay Thompson said Kyrie Irving is the “toughest guy” he’s ever guarded and has “no weaknesses in his game,” as Ashish Mathur of DallasHoopsJournal.com relays.
“It’s nice to be his teammate,” Thompson said of Irving. “You know, Kyrie and I had so many battles during those years at Golden State. We saw Cleveland four straight years in the Finals, three of them being with Kai.
“And I’ll never forget, I know you always used to check the best offensive player, and some nights there’s just nothing you could do when you’re guarding a guy like Michael (Jordan) or Larry (Bird) or Isiah (Thomas). Same thing with Kyrie.”
Here’s more on the Mavs:
- Irving, who tore the ACL in his left knee in early March, provided a minor injury update last week, saying he was “healing up great.” Overtime released a short video (Twitter link) on Sunday showing Irving practicing floaters and jump shots at the NBPA practice facility in New York (hat tip to Grant Afseth of Dallas Hoops Journal). Afseth notes that the nine-time All-Star appeared to be “moving comfortably on the court.”
- After waiving and stretching 2023 first-round pick Olivier-Maxence Prosper on Friday, Dallas will now carry a $3.2MM dead-money cap hit each of the next three years, tweets Keith Smith of Spotrac. Only about $1MM of that total came from stretching Prosper’s contract; the other $2.2MM is owed to JaVale McGee, who was cut by the Mavericks a couple years ago.
- In case you missed it, multiple reporters have indicated that P.J. Washington is likely to sign an extension with Dallas now that he’s officially eligible to do so, though the exact terms remain unclear.