5 Things Jason Kidd must fix in the Dallas Mavericks' rotation

3. Extreme reliance on Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving during regular season

Luka Doncic currently ranks second in the entire NBA in minutes played per game this season with an average of 37.5 minutes per game. His fellow co-star Kyrie Irving isn’t too far down the list as he ranks 33rd in the league with 34.3 minutes per game. It’s essential that Irving and Doncic play around the 30-35 minute mark in most games, as there aren’t many NBA teams talented enough to afford to leave their star players out for elongated periods of time.

However, Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd could certainly do a slightly better job of managing Doncic and Irving’s minutes as we inch closer to the playoffs. Doncic and Irving have played in games recently where they both end up notching over 40 minutes on the night, something that isn’t always sustainable throughout the course of a regular season.

Irving has already dealt with some minor injuries this season that have kept him sidelined for multiple weeks, so Dallas must do everything in their power to ensure their superstars are healthy heading into the playoffs. While Doncic and Irving can handle heavy workloads and will need to do so during playoffs, Kidd can’t run them into the ground throughout this last juncture of the regular season when you take into consideration that Dallas’ strength of schedule isn’t terrible and the Mavericks are finally completely healthy now.

It’s already inevitable that Doncic and Irving will have to play hefty minutes against good opponents, but Kidd can certainly do a better job of expanding the rotation to get them a little more rest in games where the Mavericks are handling business. From a defensive standpoint, it would also be good to give Doncic and Irving a little bit more rest as it’s not uncommon for one of them to take a possession off on defense because of being overtired, even if both of them aren’t necessarily bad defensive players by any means.

While this isn’t a major issue for Dallas, Kidd could certainly serve to tinker with the minutes that Doncic and Irving are allocated throughout the remaining portion of the regular season.