Do we know whether the mechanism was proposed before or after observing the results? If they found the material because of the theory, then I think it's very relevant.
Somewhat similar compounds are superconductors, so it's possible that a wrong theory gave them a lucky hint to modify an old superconductor into the new superconductor.
Lee and Kim first discovered the material in 1999 and have spent 20 years doing other things in between getting help to figure out how to isolate LK-99 and reproduce the correct grain structure.
They eventually got a world class physical chemist, Kwon.
There is now a huge bust up within the team, hence the muddled race to publish and claim credit.
Ahh that makes sense. I was wondering what was going on with the two papers and thought it might be something like that too. Thanks for the extra details.