Mavs Free Agency: Dallas Gets Good Value in D'Angelo Russell Signing
The Dallas Mavericks officially have their starting point guard until Kyrie Irving fully recovers from ACL surgery.
Photo Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images
After lucking into the No. 1 pick in this year’s NBA Draft, which was officially used to select Cooper Flagg last week, the Dallas Mavericks’ frontcourt all of a sudden looks to be one the best – if not the best – in the entire league. In addition to the 18-year-old generational talent, Dallas also has Anthony Davis, P.J. Washington, Dereck Lively, and Daniel Gafford – who recently inked a three-year, $53 million extension – to out-muscle opponents with next season.
However, with Kyrie Irving likely to be sidelined until at least January while he recovers from ACL surgury, the Mavs were left searching for answers in the point-guard department. Within the opening hour of free agency on Monday, though, Dallas found a good stop-gap starting point guard to help navigate the 2025-26 season by signing 10-year veteran D’Angelo Russell to a two-year, $12 million contract.
Through 629 career games, Russell has averaged 17.3 points, 3.4 rebounds, 5.7 assists, and 1.1 steal per game while shooting 42.7 percent from the field overall, 36.5 percent from 3-point range, and 79.6 percent from the free-throw line. “DLo” has been a starter in over 85 percent of his career games, so filling in for Irving, his former teammate with the Brooklyn Nets, should be no problem for the veteran. He appears to be excited about his new opportunity.
Russell was also teammates with Davis during their time together with the Los Angeles Lakers, where they posted a 72-43 record (62.6 win percentage). Given, that span in L.A. also included the league’s all-time leading scorer in LeBron James, which definitely boosts that win percentage, but the fact remains that Russell and Davis have established a good level of chemistry that should help the Mavs navigate the start of the upcoming season.
Side note: As for LeBron and him potetnially reuniting with his former teammates… we’ll save it for our next article, but there appears to be some smoke there that we unfortunately can’t ignore.
Russell is not a perfect player by any means. He will turn the ball over sometimes. He will take some ill-advised shots and drive fans crazy at times. But he will also have some really good games as well that will balance those things out. Russell is just one of four players in NBA history to notch at least 1,500 threes and 3,000 assists before turning 30 years old. The other three players to do it were Stephen Curry, James Harden, and Damian Lillard.
For the most part, Russell is a high-quality signing for a Mavs team that was looking for an experienced starting-caliber point guard at the Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception. Let’s see if he can hold the fort down for Irving as well as we believe he can.