Perfect 'Pickle': The Truth About Mavs' Kyrie Irving & Cooper Flagg Combo

The 2026-27 Dallas Mavs are still in embryonic form, so critics can dismiss if they wish the surprising 4-2 record featuring three straight stunning wins over contenders Miami, OKC and Houston.

But the Kyrie Irving/Cooper Flagg combo? It's not too early to evaluate it ... and for the critics who didn't think it would work to be chastised.

“What a problem, where you’re in a pickle where two guys like that just have it going and you just gotta kinda rotate between putting the ball in each other’s hands and knowing that they’re gonna make the plays,” new coach Dusty May said. "What a luxury for us.''

What I wrote on this subject during the preseason ...

Folks can pick and pick at all the reasons why the Dallas Mavs in 2026-27 might not be good.

Again.

But here's what I find to be the weirdest "pick'' of all, and it leads to the never-ending notion that Dallas simply must dump Kyrie Irving in a trade - and hurry!:

The 2026-27 Mavs don't and won't fit together because of the ages of their two best players.

The concept is idiotic on its surface and bogus at its core.

But it comes from "around the league,'' via reliable ESPN reporter Tim MacMahon, who relays to the audience, "The question that's being asked around the league is, for how long? ... "How long is this fit with Kyrie and the Mavericks?''

MacMahon continued: "And it's not because the Mavericks don't love Kyrie, they do. It's not because Kyrie doesn't love Dallas and hasn't enjoyed his experience there, by and large. He has.

"But, they're building around a 19-year-old prodigy in Cooper Flagg. So, could there come a time when it makes sense for both sides to find a contender for Kyrie to go to?

"These are the kind of things that people around the league will be monitoring leading up to the trade deadline."

I respect MacMahon's reporting here.

I don't respect the moronic concept apparently going "around the league'' - maybe generated by rivals who hope they can get their hands on Kyrie via a trade.

And it's all based on the fact that Flagg is 19 and Irving is 34 and that therefore, their career timelines do not parallel?

I mean, no spit, Sherlock.

Hey, if the Mavs could somehow find a spare room in their fancy new practice facility to install a time machine, and shove Kyrie into it to make him 19 again?

Yay, matching timelines!

The truth about roster-building in Dallas right now? The Mavs need all the truly gifted players they can get their hands on.

And they employ two truly gifted players - birth certificates be damned.

History says age-gap combos actually can do OK for themselves. To wit ...

The Los Angeles Lakers won a title in 1980 and starred Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (33) & Magic Johnson (20).

The San Antonio Spurs did it in 2014 with Tim Duncan (38) and Kawhi Leonard (22).

And Mavs fans know all too well how in 2006 Shaquille O'Neal (34) and Dwyane Wade (24) won it all.

Don't get this twisted; I'm not predicting title success for the Cooper/Kyrie Combo. I'm just saying that ...

Individual career timelines don't matter!

If the Mavericks exceed expectations and find themselves competing for a playoff spot, moving Irving becomes considerably harder to justify. A front office does not trade its second-best player while the team is winning, particularly when that player is helping take pressure off a young star. Flagg benefits from having a co-star who can create offense and Dusty May benefits from having a veteran running his locker room in his first NBA season.

If, on the other hand, this thing flops? 

Fine. We'll reexamine it. Again.

But we're now six games into the season and the pairing has been spectacular. Case in point? Friday's clutch win over the Rockets in which Irving scored 35 points with nine assists and Flagg added 33 points, nine rebounds and six assists.

Who the hell cares how old they are?

Said Irving after the Friday win: “We obviously know the external chatter as well about the 15-year age gap and what we can accomplish and how we’re gonna mesh. And I think we kind of throw that out the window and just really focused on what we can control, which is our effort and how we treat each other, and then bigging up each other’s skill sets.

“He’s a very diverse threat. I’m a very diverse threat. We just play off each other well.”

In the end, for all of the reasons this construction might not result in a winning team, age, as the saying goes, is just a number.