‘My brother becomes stronger’

Being exchanged by the Dallas Mavericks did not mean that Luka Dončić stopped worrying about former teammate Kyrie Irving.

Dončić reacted to the news of the Irving season completion in an Instagram history publication on Tuesday.

“You will become stronger my brother,” the Los Angeles Lakers star wrote.

ESPN Shams Charania The rest of the 2024-25 season of the MAVs with an acl torn in the left knee would be lost on the early Tuesday.

The Mavs are now ready to finish the season without Irving or Dončić, who was changed to the Lakers in exchange for Anthony Davis in early February.

Irving said shortly after the exchange that had “shocked” hearing that Dončić had been moved.

“You just can’t imagine that we are going to prepare to sleep and then discover news like that,” Irving said on February 8, according to CNN’s Ben Morse. “It is still a grieving process at this time. I miss my brother.”

When the two gathered for a February 25 game between the Maverick and the Lakers, Dončić used the same word to describe Irving.

“Kyrie is my brother,” Dončić saying After the victory of the Lakers. “We go beyond basketball.”

Dončić played for the last time for the Mavericks on December 25 before suffering the injury that left him aside for his last month with the team.

The MAVs then exchanged Dončić and brought to Davis, who was injured in his Mavericks debut on February 8 and has not played since then.

That has left the team supported by Irving, who averaged a maximum of 37.0 minutes per game from Dončić’s Christmas Day injury. That total increased from the exchange, which led Irving to lead the NBA in average minutes played from February 4 to March 2, by Charania.

With Irving injured and Dončić in California, Mavs will have to wait for Davis’s return as soon as possible while working to hold on to the final game place in the West.