Walter Clayton Jr.

Dwain Price

SAN ANTONIO – Guard Walter Clayton Jr. had no preconceived notions when the Dallas Mavericks signed him to a two-way contract on Oct. 21.

As he analyzed the Mavs’ roster, Clayton knew they were loaded at the guard spots with Kyrie Irving, Max Christie, Marcus Sasser, Caleb Martin and Sergio De Larrea. He just wanted to pry open the door a little bit and see if there were some minutes that were available for him to possibly shine.

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“I’m willing to adapt to kind of whatever the team needs me to be on whatever night it is,” Clayton said. “Whether that’s with the ball in my hands or without the ball in my hands. I’m just trying to be a team player.”

Clayton was certainly a team player during Monday’s game against the Sacramento Kings. While the Mavs were struggling to get the ball in the basket, Clayton wound up converting 6-of-9 shots and scoring a career-high-tying 20 points in 24 minutes.

In Clayton’s only other time playing more than 16 minutes this season, he poured in 15 points on 6-of-7 shots in 17 minutes during a 113-109 victory at Miami on Oct. 26. His production hasn’t gone unnoticed by his teammates.

“I’ve been a fan of Walter’s game ever since he left Florida,” Mavs center Daniel Gafford said. “Just seeing the things that he’s done in a couple of games that he’s actually had good (minutes), he’s a good shooter, he attacks the basket, he facilitates, he communicates with us, (and) he finds ways to show how he’s a true point guard.”

Irving has gone out of his way to show Clayton the ropes on how to be a much more effective player, and the former University of Florida product is very appreciative of the nine-time All-Star’s support.

“From a day-to-day standpoint, how he takes care of himself, how he works, and then the mental aspect, too,” Clayton said in describing what he’s learned from Irving. “He’s giving me little bits and pieces day-by-day, so it’s definitely great having him and I’ve learned a lot.”

More importantly, when Irving is on the sidelines, he’s able to watch whatever Clayton’s doing and offer some sage advice. Constructive criticism, Clayton knows, is what he needs at this stage of his young career.

“There might be a point where (Irving) feels like I could have rejected a screen,” said Clayton, who is in his second NBA season. “He’ll just get in my ear and let me know about that.

“And then the main thing really is just don’t get down on myself. Whenever something bad happens, move on to the next play. He’s big on next-play mentality. That’s something he’s been preaching to me a lot.”

In just 13.2 minutes per game, Clayton is averaging 6.8 points while shooting an efficient 53.8 percent from the field (14-of-26) and a sizzling 57.1 percent from three-point territory (8-of-14).

“He’s steady, he’s producing (and) he’s progressing like he wants to,” Gafford said. “And he’s got a great guard in his ear in Kyrie Irving that’s giving him, I’m pretty sure, tips and pointers on how to be good in this game.”

A first-round pick of the Washington Wizards in 2025, the 23 year-old Clayton said Mavs coach Dusty May also has given him some pointers.

“Dusty’s great,” said Clayton, who was 4-of-5 from three-point range against the Kings. “He cares about us even more like being a person, so I think that’s big going out here playing for a coach that cares about you as a person.

“He’s obviously a great basketball mind and a great dude. He’s been adapting to us as well in his first year in the league. He’s been great, and it’s only going to get better.”

And in time, Clayton also knows he’s only going to get better.

*Kyrie Irving will be back in the lineup after sitting out Monday’s 115-100 loss to the Sacramento Kings due to left knee injury management. With Irving sidelined, the Mavs had all sorts of problems getting the ball in the basket as they shot 41 percent overall and 21.2 percent from the three-point arc (7-of-33). The Mavs also know they need to protect the ball better after turning it over 16 times against the Kings. In addition, center Santi Aldama is listed as doubtful after not playing all season due to right knee surgery he underwent in March while he was playing for Memphis. Also, guard Max Christie (right hip soreness)) will not play Wednesday.

*For the Spurs, both the offense and defense centers on high-octane center Victor Wembanyama. The 7-4 Frenchman is first in the NBA in blocks (4.0 bpg), fifth in rebounding (10.7 rpg) and 10th in scoring (25.7 ppg) while causing all sorts of problems on both ends of the floor. Also for the Spurs, Dylan Harper averages 18.3 ppg, 5.7 rpg &nbsp;and 5.3 apg, and De’Aaron Fox is averaging 15.9 ppg and 6.4 apg. Stephon Castle (14.7 ppg, 5.6 rpg, 5.0 apg), Devin Vassell (11.9) and Julian Champagnie (11.1 ppg) have been viable weapons for the Spurs.

*The Mavs are not concerned one bit about the 17 points on a frosty 3-of-19 shooting that they got from forward Cooper Flagg during the 15-point loss to the Kings. “I know he’s going to bounce back,” center Daniel Gafford said. “Whenever it comes to the conversations throughout the locker room, I always say our response is going to dictate how we feel the next day or the next game. I try to speak life into people. Whenever I see the head down, one of the main things is (Flagg) said I’m sorry for how I played. It’s not on him. This is a team game night-in and night-out. If one person has a bad game or two people have a bad game, it’s still on the team, because we play defense at the end of the day, too.”

*The Spurs spoiled the Mavs' home opener, 122-106, on Oct. 24. San Antonio distributed 34 assists on its 48 baskets and were led by Wembanyama (23 points, seven rebounds, four blocks), Harper (22 points, two steals), Castle (19 points, eight assists, three steals), and Fox (19 points, nine assists, three steals). The Mavs’ Cooper Flagg (shoulder) and Kyrie Irving (resting on the second night of a back-to-back) did not play in that game.

Dallas Mavericks (4-3) at San Antonio Spurs (5-2)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

RADIO: 105.3 The Fan, 99.1 FM Zona MX (Spanish)

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Mavericks-Spurs preview: Clayton ready and willing to adapt to whatever is needed

Gabe Flores

Walter Clayton Jr. went 4/5 from long distance and finishing with 20 points against the Sacramento Kings. DALLAS MAVERICKS on Social Media: ► Follow us X: / dallasmavs ► Like us Facebook: / dallasmavs ► Follow us Instagram: / dallasmavs For more updates check us out on Mavs.com: https://www.mavs.com

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Walter Clayton Jr. (20 Points) vs. Sacramento Kings | November 2, 2026

Over the course of a long 82-game season, what happened to the Dallas Mavericks on Monday night will likely also happen to the other 29 NBA teams on multiple occasions this season. For the Mavs, it just leaves a sour taste in their mouth when it happens.

Favored to win a game this season for the first time – against a Sacramento team that was the league’s only winless squad – the Mavs surprisingly played down to the competition and wound up losing to the pesky Kings, 115-100, at American Airlines Center.

In having their three-game winning streak snapped, the Mavs fell to 4-3 as they head to San Antonio on Wednesday, while the Kings improved to 1-6. Afterward, Mavs coach Dusty May didn’t make any excuses for his team, who looked nothing like the team that swept through Miami, Oklahoma City and Houston last week.

“I want to credit Sacramento,” May said. “They were the more determined team tonight and the more prepared team, and they came in here and earned it.

“We didn’t put much pressure on the paint and on the rim, and we were on our heels. Win or lose, we’re going to look back at our process and see: Did we prepare the right way, did we have the right game plan, what would we do different the next time?”

The Mavs couldn’t contain rookie Darius Acuff Jr. (25 points, five rebounds, six assists), Malik Monk (24 points, seven assists) or Zach LaVine (23 points, 5-of-9 three-pointers). And for that, they paid dearly against a Sacramento squad that has lost five of its games by 11 or more points.

“To be honest, I think they were more hungry than us tonight,” said Mavs guard Walter Clayton Jr., who scored a team-high tying 20 points and converted 4-of-5 three-pointers. “I think we kind of played to their record.

“We didn’t play up to our abilities. We lost the rebounding battle (42-35). That was a big one. They beat us to a lot of 50-50 (balls). We just got to come out with more energy.”

Yes, the Mavs played without superstar guard Kyrie Irving, who was resting as Dallas played the first of five games in eight days. And when Cooper Flagg struggled with just 17 points on 3-of-19 shots, not many players stepped up to become a factor.

May acknowledged that the Kings loaded the paint and forced Flagg to become a jump shooter, and he kept missing the mark.

“There’s a cadence to it where he’s fanning out early and then we missed our first (10) threes and we thought several of them were good looks,” May said. “At that point it fuels their fire to get to him even more in the paint. . .and they’re running a second guy and a third guy at him.

“I don’t think our spacing or relocations were great as a whole, and we didn’t find any rhythm together.”

The Mavs, who got 13 points in 17 minutes from rookie Morez Johnson Jr., entered the fourth quarter down, 81-74. And whenever they tried to nip away at the deficit, either Acuff, Monk or LaVine kept burying big shots.

“They spread us out and they made tough shots,” May said. “I thought LaVine was very, very sound. Obviously, Acuff is dynamic. I thought they picked their spots well.

“But Monk, every time we made a run he came back with a step-back three dagger after dagger. It wasn’t as if they didn’t make plays.”

In the meantime, the Mavs missed their top playmaker – Irving.

“He does so much for us in making big shots and calming us down,” May said. “We haven’t been able to answer runs very well, and that’s one area that he does.

“When one of your guys is out and another one just has an off night, you’ve got to have some other guys step up. And making shots is part of that, and it just didn’t drop tonight.”

On playing without Irving, center Daniel Gafford said: “We definitely missed him. He has a lot of gravity when he’s on the floor. He makes everyone’s job a little easier.

“But whenever he’s not on the floor everybody knows it’s the next man up. Everybody has to take that next step and find ways to make an impact whenever one of our star players is not on the floor.”

Overall, the Mavs shot 41 percent from the field and just 21.2 percent (7-of-33) from beyond the three-point arc. They started slow – down 19-18 after the first quarter and 54-53 at the half – and finished even slower.

Indeed, it was not one of the Mavs’ finer moments, especially considering the competition.

“I felt like the energy was a little low,” said Gafford, who collected 20 points and seven rebounds and was 9-of-10 from the field. “P.J. (Washington) said it a lot in the locker room -- we played their record tonight, 100 percent. They came in and they played like pros tonight.”

Sacramento shot 52.4 percent from the floor and 44.2 percent (19-of-43) from three-point land. For the most part, the Kings were in command of this game.

“We’ll have several learning experiences from this game,” May said. “We do have a young team and when it’s not going well, we just kept stressing everything’s going poorly for us, but let’s just find a way to hang around and get it to the end.

“Their shot-making prevented us from doing that. Those guys, they found great connections -- especially in the fourth quarter -- found some matchups, and I thought they played unselfish basketball.”

Now the Mavs must regroup and battle a Spurs team that defeated them in Dallas, 122-106, on Oct.24.

“We can’t let the record fool us, at the end of the day,” Gafford said of the Kings. “An 0-6 team coming in with a fire under their tail. We had to be ready for anything. There were times when shots didn’t fall and I felt like we kind of let go of the rope in those situations.

“We’ll let this hurt until midnight, and then we’ll focus on the next one. We’ve got a big game coming up in two days against a good Spurs team. We can’t dwell too much on this one.”

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Mavericks fall to previously winless Kings, 115-100

Eddie Sefko

A lot of NBA players have a history with each other. Some grew up playing AAU ball against (or with) each other. Others had battles in college.

In the case of Walter Clayton and Cooper Flagg, it’s the history that didn’t happen that was a prime topic for them recently.

Clayton and the Florida Gators won the NCAA championship in 2025. They beat the Houston Cougars in the title game. UH had beaten Flagg and the Duke Blue Devils in the semifinals of the Final Four.

Flagg went on to become the No. 1 overall pick by the Mavericks in the 2025 draft. Clayton was taken 18th overall and split time in his first season between Utah and Memphis before landing in Dallas last week on a two-way contract.

No matter what happens, Clayton will always have the 2025 Final Four to hold over Flagg. He said there has been some recent banter between the two about their collegiate years.

“A little bit yesterday,” Clayton said Monday before the Mavericks-Heat contest. “He said something about it should have been them in the title game getting a shot at it. But it was a great game between them and Houston.”

Regardless of what happened that college season, Clayton now is a Maverick and teammate of Flagg’s. They can laugh about the past. Sort of, in Flagg’s case.

But after Monday night when Clayton made a sensational homecoming in Florida, they’re smiling a lot more about each other.

Clayton was born in Sebring and grew up in Lake Wales in the central part of Florida. You may remember Lake Wales as the home of former NBAers Amare Stoudemire and former Maverick Dominique Jones.

On Monday, with backup point guard Sergio De Larrea sidelined with a knee injury suffered in the second quarter against Miami, Clayton came alive with 15 points, four assists and four rebounds. He hit 6-of-7 shots, including both his three-pointers.

The Mavericks were plus-22 in the 17 minutes Clayton was on the floor.

“Walt was great,” Flagg said after the 113-109 win over the Heat. “Obviously, he hasn’t been with us for very long. But for him to step up tonight, 6-of-7 from the field, I thought his intensity and plus-22, for him to go out there and play really hard and unselfish basketball is a really big step for our team.

“After shootaround (Monday morning), he was playing with the guys in the stay-ready game. So a little bit of a double-header for him.”

Clayton signed his two-way contract with the Mavericks last week, showing up in Houston for the season opener on Wednesday with no practices under his belt with his new team.

The feeling-out process ended against the Heat. Clayton looked right at home, which, of course, he was.

“I’m from Florida, so it always feels good to be back, get a little sunshine, get a little rain, too,” he said. “It feels good to be back. We have our 10, 15 minutes of sprinkle, then it’ll stop.”

The Miami area, by the way, has something going on called the King Tide, which – combined with intermittent deluges – turned a lot of downtown streets into small rivers during the Mavericks’ quick stay.

What Miami wasn’t counting on was a King Gator.

“In this state, they’ve seen him a lot,” coach Dusty May said. “He’s got ice-water in his veins. He’s unfazed, even when he doesn’t play up to his best. They were trying to go at him and I thought he held his own defensively.

“And offensively, he gives us so much because he can create advantages, get in the paint and he used his shot fakes well. Just played really, really good ball.”

The 6-4 guard is hoping that this change of scenery will jump-start his NBA career. Not that he had a bad rookie season. He averaged 7.8 points and 4 assists per game, although he did not shoot the ball well, hitting only 38.4 percent from the field (30.7 percent from beyond the three-point arc).

“I think last year was an up-and-down year,” Clayton said. “I’m going to take it as a learning year. I think we go through everything for a reason. I’m thankful for last year and glad to be here in Dallas.”

As are the Mavericks, especially after Monday.

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Clayton's homecoming breakout against Heat signals his arrival with Mavericks

Walter Clayton has barely been in the NBA a year and he’s already had a career’s worth of initiation to what the league is like.

He has, in order, been traded as a future first-round pick, been a first-round draftee of Washington, traded to Utah on the same night he was drafted, traded again to Memphis in midseason and, finally, waived by the Grizzlies on Monday.

They signed the 6-4 point guard to a two-way contract on Wednesday. The franchise had an open two-way contract after waiving John Poulakidas over the weekend.

Clayton got waived by the Grizzlies on cut-down day and he had no shortage of suitors. With the Mavericks, he’ll be able to play 50 games in the NBA, under rules of two-way contracts. He can also play unlimited games for the Texas Legends, the Mavericks’ G League affiliate. There's certainly an opportunity to play with the Mavericks having more big men than guards.

Clayton has been a promising talent for years. He started his college career at Iona, then transferred to Florida and helped the Gators win the national championship in 2025, when he averaged 18.3 points, 4.2 assists and 3.7 rebounds per game.

He was named the Final Four most outstanding player and had a key defensive play late in the Gators’ 65-63 win over Houston in the championship game.

For whatever reasons, Clayton has been a tradeable asset twice in his first NBA season. Part of it could be that he shot just 30.7 percent from three-point range as a rookie (after hitting 38.6 percent as a senior in college.

Part of it may have been that he was involved in multi-team deals that, at least in the February trade of Jaren Jackson Jr., were star-level blockbusters.

But none of that matters now. Clayton is with the Mavericks for much-needed backcourt depth. He joined the team in Houston and was available for the Mavericks in the season opener.

Clayton will wear No. 1 for the Mavericks.

Walter Clayton Jr.

Mavericks-Spurs preview: Clayton ready and willing to adapt to whatever is needed

Walter Clayton Jr. (20 Points) vs. Sacramento Kings | November 2, 2026

Mavericks fall to previously winless Kings, 115-100

Clayton's homecoming breakout against Heat signals his arrival with Mavericks

Some perspective about new Mavericks' guard Clayton