The Kyrie trade is a perfect example of playoff teams(or any team with a Transcendental superstar) choosing to improve their ceiling vs focusing on the floor.

Kyrie for all his flaws is a superstar and provides a huge talent upgrade over spence and dinwiddie leading to a higher ceiling for the mavs.

Obviously his off court issues means the floor is lower but what PPL don't understand is irrespective of who's around him Luka ensures their floor is a playoff team(which rings true for nearly any of the current top 5 players(jokic Luka giannis kd embiid in no particular order).

Therefore it makes utmost sense to make moves which go and improve their upside and ceiling rather than focus on the floor.

This doesn't mean it works for every team. Such moves only make sense when you've got a reliable superstar who you can trust to get you to the playoffs irrespective (think peak bron,giannis Luka and jokic and I'd even say embiid/curry(maybe not curry due to his age).

Since the reliance of seeding being low and a rather even league teams don't bother much about record as long as they get to the playoffs and instead focus on maximising the best case scenario/ceiling of their team come playoffs.

Now you may wonder why Kyrie comes into this. Kyrie being a bona fide superstar(albeit unreliable due to off court issues) helps improve the ceiling of any team by leaps and bounds by providing them a extra crunch time option who's also a nasty shooter. It's the kind of move which officially puts you in the set of teams where you're looking more at the playoffs where defenses are lot better and premium scorers prove their worth.

Lakers tried this(the russ move) and failed largely because russ quite simply wasn't the star/superstar bron hoped he was and that bron wasn't quite healthy/good enough to carry them to the playoffs.

Mavs on the other hand have Luka who ensures their worst case scenario is making a early exit in the playoffs