The secret to Kyrie Irving's quiet success in Dallas

WHEN RESERVE GUARD Frank Ntilikina checked in with 3:28 remaining in the third quarter of the Dallas Mavericks‘ 2021-22 season opener, he represented the completion of one of Jason Kidd’s primary goals in his first home game as the team’s head coach.

Ntilikina was the last of the Mavericks’ 15 active players to step on the court that night.

Kidd had managed his personnel that night against the Houston Rockets in a manner typically reserved for youth leagues, which subjected him to some ridicule. He explained in his postgame news conference that he had appointed a three-man leadership council, and that group had suggested full participation in the home opener as a means of promoting team unity.

“We’re not doing that against San Antonio, but it was a great idea at the time,” Kidd told ESPN recently, referring to the Mavs’ 2024-25 season opener against the Spurs on Thursday night (7:30 p.m. ET, TNT).

Kidd’s willingness to grant the request was meant as a message to the entire team, but it was especially intended for one player: Luka Doncic, who three years later is one of only three roster holdovers in Dallas and the lone remaining member of that leadership council that also originally included Kristaps Porzingis and Tim Hardaway Jr.

Kidd formed the three-man council, scheduling occasional meetings with it, to open the lines of communication that were frequently cluttered or disconnected altogether under previous Mavs coach Rick Carlisle.

“The more you talk, the better,” Doncic said that night. “Talking solves things, so I think it’s a good idea.”

The Mavs’ leadership council, at least as an official group, is no more. Kidd never officially dismantled it, but it had served its purpose.

Three years later, ideas flow freely among Kidd’s coaching staff and the Mavs’ stars, a group that is led by Doncic and added Kyrie Irving at the 2023 trade deadline. Now, coming off the team’s first Finals appearance since 2011, Kidd enters opening night with a new goal: integrating another future Hall of Famer in Klay Thompson. He signed with Dallas over the summer and arrives with four championship rings of his own, with hopes to add a fifth — which would be Doncic’s first.

“The only way it works is if there’s communication,” Kidd said recently, recalling the leadership council. “All the side chatter, all the silos, individual silos, those don’t win. Those just self-destruct or destroy an organization.”

Many within the Dallas organization believe that Kidd is uniquely suited to bring out the best in the superstar duo of Doncic and Irving, who have both butted heads with their head coaches at times, as Kidd did on occasion throughout the course of his two-decade playing career. Kidd has been intentional and deliberate about building bonds that help him know when to pat them on the back and when to push their buttons. Now he has the added challenge of acclimating Thompson, whose 13-year run with the Golden State Warriors soured last season.

“Outside of him being a Hall of Famer and being like a well trusted, high-level-IQ thinker?” Irving told ESPN. “He’s also being human enough to get to know what irks a player and what makes a player go in a positive manner.”

Added Mavs assistant coach Jared Dudley: “I’m going to be honest with you, there’s only two or three coaches in the league that have the cachet and personality to be able to coach Luka and Kyrie at the same time and have no problems.”

IRVING BOARDED A plane to Phoenix in search of knowledge. As a rising star with the Cleveland Cavaliers, he wanted the chance to go to dinner with one of his favorite players from his childhood.

He grew up in New Jersey when Kidd starred for the Nets from 2001 to ’07, leading the franchise to its only two NBA Finals appearances. So he asked Robin Pound, the former Phoenix Suns strength and conditioning coach who both had employed as a personal trainer, to make the introduction.

Irving peppered Kidd with questions throughout the meal, picking his brain about the nuances of leadership in an NBA locker room.

“Kai is a special dude,” Kidd said. “He wants to understand the game at the highest level, wants to be pushed to the highest level. And I don’t think he’s afraid of failing. When I say failing, losing or missing a shot, but we’ll come back and learn from that. Kai wants to be coached. Kai wants to be helped to win a championship.”

A kinship quickly developed between Irving and Kidd, and they maintained contact over the years, with Irving making a point to attend Kidd’s Hall of Fame induction in 2018.

Their relationship fueled Kidd’s confidence that he could help Irving thrive in Dallas, despite the eight-time All-Star’s reputation at that point as one of the league’s most mercurial players, which was the primary reason the Mavs were able to acquire Irving without the assets typically required in a trade for that sort of talent.

“You heard all about Kyrie in the last couple places he’s been,” said Dudley, who played for Kidd in Milwaukee and with the Los Angeles Lakers when Kidd was an assistant before joining his coaching staff.

“You haven’t heard one thing since he’s been in Dallas. Do you think that’s just Dallas, or do you think 80% has to do with Jason Kidd?”

In Dallas, Irving’s value has been felt far beyond his offensive brilliance as half of the league’s highest-scoring tandem last season, when the Mavs made a run to the NBA Finals as the Western Conference’s fifth seed. Irving has emerged as a vocal and emotional leader for the Mavs, empowered to succeed in the role he quizzed Kidd about years ago.

“Of the guys I’ve been around, he’s on par with the all-time great teammates, man,” Mavs assistant coach Sean Sweeney told ESPN. “He’s an unreal teammate. For a truly great player to be such a truly great teammate, I think that impacts everybody — coaches, players. You want to do your best when you’re around that guy because of how purposeful he is and just the way he goes about his day and how he treats people. It’s pretty incredible, man. He’s off the charts when it comes to that stuff.”

Irving has become an extension of Kidd in the locker room, along with veteran forward Markieff Morris, who rarely plays but is highly respected throughout the organization and developed a strong relationship with Kidd while winning a championship ring together with the Lakers in 2020.

Kidd frequently engages Irving in philosophical discussions, often about basketball but occasionally about broader topics. Kidd and Irving typically loop in Doncic when the basketball talks could influence the team’s strategy or approach.

He encourages dissenting opinions.

“If you have the ability to give him something to think about, something to digest, something to see, he goes, ‘Oh, I see what you’re doing,'” Kidd said, speaking specifically about Irving, although the statement also applies to Doncic.

“And sometimes he might say he likes it, sometimes he might not like it, but that’s all right to have those kind of confrontations … It’s all right to agree, but I think when you disagree, it’s, how do we figure out how can we be better?”

“HEY, CAN WE play faster?” Kidd texted Doncic in the summer of 2023.

Kidd had been stewing for months in the wake of the Mavs’ disappointing season, when Dallas had plummeted into the draft lottery despite the midseason deal to acquire Irving. He hoped to start a dialogue with Doncic about why the Mavs should speed up the tempo after they finished 28th in pace the previous season.

Kidd was prepared to make a case, supported with video clips, about how picking up the pace could help the Mavs. He figured Doncic might take a little time to digest the idea before replying.

But it took all of two seconds for Doncic to shift into solutions mode, as he answered immediately by stating that the Mavs would need to inbound the ball faster after giving up a basket.

Dallas rocketed to seventh in pace last season, in part due to Doncic prioritizing the look-ahead pass, which Kidd made an art form during his days as a floor general. According to Second Spectrum tracking data, a league-leading 53 of Doncic’s assists traveled at least 40 feet in the air.

Problem solved.

But Kidd took time to establish that easy rapport with his superstar. He acknowledges now that he was “careful” in their first season together, aware that he took over a potentially “fragile situation.” It was no secret that Doncic had friction with the previous head coach, and it was understood that Doncic might have preferred his favorite former Mavs assistant Jamahl Mosley to get the nod as Carlisle’s successor.

But Kidd eventually decided that Doncic’s subpar defense was a battle worth picking. He publicly challenged Doncic to “participate” on that end of the floor midway through the season — and notably did so again after the Mavs fell into an 0-2 hole in the West finals against the Suns.

“That could have gone either way,” Kidd said recently. “That could have gone the other way. But he responded. He fought. He started to make a stand.”

The Mavs finished that season ranked seventh in the league in defensive efficiency, a leap of 14 spots from the previous year. Doncic, while carrying as big of an offensive burden as any player in the league, did his part in a defensive scheme designed to protect him as much as possible. And the Mavs snapped a playoff series win drought that dated to 2011, when Kidd started at point guard for Dallas’ lone title team, advancing to the West finals.

Kidd has repeated the “participate” prodding of Doncic on several occasions over the past few years. He’s also made a theme of publicly rebuking Doncic from time to time when Kidd determines that the star’s temperamental complaining to referees becomes especially counterproductive. (Doncic’s two primary weaknesses sometimes overlap, as Kidd has noted that it’s tough to play transition defense while ranting at the refs.)

“The thing that Jason’s really, really good at is he’s able to help guys who have greatness in them live up to that standard and listen to and speak the truth — and sometimes hard truths,” said Sweeney, who has been on Kidd’s coaching staffs in Brooklyn, Milwaukee and Dallas. “Luka’s a really tough kid, tough person.

“The big thing to me with Jason is it comes from a place of wanting you to succeed, and he has a willingness to listen. That helps you build a relationship with the guy.”

Kidd remains selective of when to use tough love on Doncic, sensitive about “nitpicking” a player who puts up historic numbers (a league-leading 33.9 points, 9.2 rebounds and 9.8 assists per game last season) while often playing through nicks and pains.

“Then sometimes you have to do it, because it’s not about him, it’s about the others,” Kidd said of criticizing Doncic, whether it’s public or in a film session. “But you have to use him as the example.”

As Kidd puts it, if he can’t hold his best player accountable, “then everything else goes sideways.”

Kidd proudly points out that Doncic has made significant strides over the last few years with his conditioning, his rapport with referees and his defense.

“I think Luka’s tied in, and we’re at a really good place of being honest with one another. He wants to be great, has goals — individual and team — and we want to help him get there.”

THOMPSON’S ARRIVAL PROVIDES a new challenge for Kidd: figuring out the best mesh of the preferred styles of two of the NBA’s best off-dribble creators and a historically elite shooter accustomed to constant movement without the ball. But it’s one he welcomes.

The process has been delayed by a calf contusion that sidelined Doncic for the entire preseason. He’s had only a handful of practices to work with Thompson, and Kidd has preached patience when it comes to the Mavs’ most high-profile newcomer’s production.

“It’s going to take a journey of 82 games to get used to one another,” Kidd said before Thompson’s preseason debut. “We’re going to look good some nights and some nights we’re going to struggle. But it’s the journey. It’s the full picture, the big picture, and hopefully we get it right by March and April.”

The future Hall of Fame trio’s lack of practice time together entering the season isn’t ideal, but it’s not a major concern for Kidd. The Mavs managed to implement two new starters — center Daniel Gafford and power forward P.J. Washington — into the lineup after the trade deadline last season and morphed into legitimate contenders in the last 20 games of the regular season.

The calm Kidd, who sometimes stands on the sideline with his hands in his pockets while he silently challenges his players to problem-solve on the court, is the product of his previous, checkered coaching experience.

“Didn’t know how to coach,” Kidd admitted, evaluating his messy, one-season stint in Brooklyn immediately after he retired as a player. “That’s the big thing … You have to try to help everyone who wants to achieve something — and that’s minutes, score and get paid. And hopefully they mix in winning.”

Those Nets won some, digging out of a 10-21 hole to finish 44-38 before advancing to the second round of the playoffs, but a year filled with reports of dysfunction between Kidd and the Brooklyn front office ended when the Nets accepted a pair of second-round picks to allow Kidd to bolt for the Milwaukee Bucks, who were coming off a 15-win season in Giannis Antetokounmpo‘s rookie year.

Kidd’s priorities with the Bucks were to “change the tone” and develop young talent, such as Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton, who were unproven projects when Kidd arrived. The Bucks made a massive immediate leap under Kidd — finishing .500 in his first season, a 26-win improvement — but he left Milwaukee with a pair of first-round playoff exits and a reputation as a relentless taskmaster who conducted long, grueling practices.

“Then he was the fun coach in LA,” Dudley said, reminiscing about the lighthearted vibe that Kidd had with the Lakers’ stars, including Kidd’s 2008 Olympics teammate LeBron James.

Kidd has credited that two-season stint as an assistant under Frank Vogel — whom Kidd convinced to consult for the Mavs this season after the Suns fired him after one year — for providing him a different perspective on coaching.

Kidd says he’s working on meshing the best qualities of his tenures with the Bucks and Lakers in Dallas. He’s still a teacher, as evidenced by Kidd and his right-hand man Sweeney constructing defenses that far exceed the sum of their parts in Dallas’ two seasons that resulted in deep playoff runs.

But he’s also created a culture.

“He’s learned from past head coaching jobs that he’s had and being with different players and seeing them improve,” Irving said. “Now, he’s just mastering his own coaching philosophy and being an originator.”

Kidd’s coaching tenure in Dallas has featured some turbulence, most notably the 2022-23 campaign that was so disappointing that Dallas tanked the last week to keep its top-10-protected pick. But a Dallas franchise that hadn’t advanced out of the first round since that 2011 title run has won five playoff series in Kidd’s three seasons on the sideline, matching Carlisle for the most in team history.

Now, he opens the season as the defending Western Conference champion with another star on his roster.

“I don’t think this man just gets enough credit,” Dudley said. “When you think about the top coaches, you can count ’em on one hand that can be able to relate to these star players. And that’s what this league is, a star-driven league.”