Recently, the teams that made the playoffs are all sprinting to win. Compared with many teams that play in the playoffs, the most worried should be the Lone Ranger, after all, they were still a Western Conference finalist last season, and they can't even make the playoffs this season.
After Doncic led the Mavericks to the Western Conference Finals last season, it really seems like the team is about to rise again. Last season's Lone Ranger had only one All-Star, Doncic, paired with very practical role players such as Brunson and Hardaway Jr., who could all the way to the Western Conference Finals. If the offseason is a little bit stronger and Doncic is found with a stronger teammate, then there is no hope for a championship. In the middle of the season, this championship opportunity really appeared, the Nets due to internal conflicts, tear down and rebuild, all players can be traded. The Lone Ranger saw this opportunity and decisively struck, with Brunson as the main body, promoted a multi-party deal to get Irving.
The ideal is beautiful, the reality is cruel. Getting Irving's lone ranger strength did not go further, and the combination of Irving and Doncic was not very compatible, and did not achieve the effect of 1+1>2. Doncic's style of play is a typical ball-holding core style of play, you must have the ball in hand to maximize his role, and you can't play without the ball. Although Irving has good projection ability and can play off the ball, he also holds the ball much better than the off-ball. Both are backcourt players and both need to hold the ball, so the compatibility is not very high, plus neither of them can defend, so in the absence of improvement in attack, their own backcourt defense is beaten into a sieve by the opponent. So after the two joined forces, the Lone Ranger's record did not rise but declined, sliding from fourth in the West until the end of the season, and could not even win the play-off qualification. The two men have a 5-11 record and a 31.3 percent win rate, the lowest percentage of two All-Stars since the 1976-1977 season.
To make matters worse, Irving not only can't have chemistry with Doncic on the court. After coming to the Lone Ranger, he missed the game for no reason many times, or even disappeared, and the team manager and owner were unable to contact him. Originally thought that after the farce between the Green Army and the Nets, Irving would restrain and focus on the court. Obviously, Doncic can't suppress Irving on the team, and for now, perhaps only James has the ability to restrain Irving's behavior.
Therefore, after the end of the Lone Ranger's season, there were reports that Doncic was very dissatisfied with the team's trade to Irving, believing that Irving destroyed the team's chemistry, causing the Lone Ranger to fail to make the playoffs from last season's Western Conference Finals. The team's first priority in the offseason is to trade Irving's cancer, otherwise Doncic will not guarantee that he will continue to stay with the Lone Ranger.