The Knicks faced a Dallas team missing their 4-time All-NBA star. Unfortunately, the Mavs’ 3-time All-NBA star proved too tough.

I have a favorite riddle. There’s this glass jar, its hole sealed by a cork, the jar only just big enough to hold a bird inside of it. How do you free the bird without breaking the glass or killing the bird? With many riddles, how you feel about the answer probably says something else about you.

Some riddles remind us where we’re oriented, and by extension what we’re missing. For example: I add five to nine to get two. What am I? If you just walked out of a math class, you may struggle to get out of that headspace long enough to realize “I” am a clock: add five hours to 9:00 and you get 2:00. If you can’t solve a riddle, the answer often makes instant, annoying sense the second you hear it. What is it that poor people have, rich people need, and if you eat it you die? Nothing.

Kyrie Irving is many things to many people. Eight-time All-Star. NBA champion, owner of one of the iconic shots in Finals history. A dribbling god. A lay-up god. A Jew. An antisemite. An iconoclast. A sheep led astray. Complicated. Basic.

¡Que riddle! Which is it? How you feel about the answer probably says something else about you.

His Dallas Mavericks were without Luka Dončić, hosting a New York Knicks team undefeated since acquiring OG Anunoby. For a lot of teams, beating a hot team without their best player would be a bridge too far. But there’s a reason owners in Golden State and Dallas and Phoenix and possibly both L.A. teams and the Knicks, despite collectively approving an anti-fan collective bargaining agreement that punishes owners for aggregating stars, nevertheless keep chasing those stars, even —especially — after they already have one, even knowing how hard that makes it to build a deep, flexible roster. There are maybe 10 people currently alive capable of dropping 44 points and 10 assists on 58/60/89 shooting any given night. Kyrie’s one, and that’s what he dropped on the Knicks last night.

They say you can’t win a game in the first quarter, but you can lose it. Poppycock. If you can lose that early, then someone else is winning. The Mavs won last night’s game in the opening frame behind three players in double-figures, led by Irving’s 10 first-quarter points and six assists. Despite the defensive game plan being focused on him, especially with Dončić out, note how clean his shot attempts are. When everyone’s trying to stop you from scoring and you’re not just scoring but getting good shots off, you’re a riddle.

Knicks fans are familiar with the danger that tempts world-class scorers. Narcissus was so beautiful he caught sight of his own reflection and fell in love with it; he couldn’t see other people, so self-centered was he. If Narcissus were 6-foot-8 and grew up in Maryland, he might’ve become an elite scorer at all three levels who didn’t share the ball enough, como Carmelo Anthony or Michael Beasley. That flaw doesn’t exist with Irving, whose career assist rate is higher than what any Knick has put up this year. Whatever one may think of Irving’s game, it’s not self-centered.

The Knicks meeting Irving last night carried all kinds of added significance. Here was the man many thought was Knick-bound in 2019, along with Kevin Durant. Instead, add him to the list of Hall of Famers who got away, the near-Knicks, his bust alongside busted pursuits from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to Kevin McHale to KD. Instead of getting Irving, the Knicks got a headache – maybe not the chronic migraine he became for Brooklyn, but the Knicks having lost 17 of their last 19 games against Irving’s teams has left many of their fans rubbing their temples, praying for relief that doesn’t come.

Irving also reminds us of a choice the Knicks now face, one complicated by the latest CBA. We know it’s difficult to win in the NBA, not only “even” with a superstar-heavy roster, but because of it. After the Nets a few years ago and the current Suns managed to get all their big fish in a row, they struggled afterward with a lack of depth. The Warriors and Lakers have needs you can see from space, but not much that appeals to other teams beyond the superstars they’d never trade; the new CBA limits their options. The Mavs added Kyrie in part to signal to Dončić that they’re a serious franchise that’s taken the necessary next step to title contention. Got one star? Get a second. Got two? Go for three. Gotta catch ‘em all.

But do they? What avenues exist for the Mavericks to add the kind of depth and quality a Luka-Kyrie team would need to contend? Would the Knicks trading 2-3 good players and 4-5 draft picks for one superstar get them any closer to their goal than they are now? Or would they become the latest NBA bobblehead, a top-heavy team whose body is too skimpy to support its dreams? That’s a riddle every team has to answer for itself.

Glass half-full: Leon Rose has never overpaid in any of the big swings he’s taken so far. Still. When you got an itch that lasts for years, it gets harder over time to turn down offers for a scratch.

On a micro level, last night is a reminder of why you do trade for a star when one’s available. Replace Irving with 99% of NBA players – from any point in league history – and the Knicks win last night. Instead, it’s the Mavs who improved their position among the West’s lower playoff teams and the Knicks who slipped back a bit. That riddle from the opening? How do you free the bird without breaking the glass or killing the bird? It’s impossible. That is, it would be — if the bird and the jar were real. They’re not. How could they be? You can’t fit a bird inside a cork-sealed jar that’s barely big enough to house the bird. 

The answer is that there is no bird. There is no jar. They’re just words. Thus, the bird is free. The Knicks’ next game is tomorrow in Memphis. There is no high-flying bird; there is no Ja. Although the Grizzlies, minus Morant, did beat the Mavericks a couple nights ago. Do you trust New York to bounce back? However you answer doesn’t ultimately matter. They’re just words. So much of life is.