Dallas Mavericks star Kyrie Irving called out NBA media members who said heavy minutes led to his ACL tear.
Irving tore his left ACL on March 3 against the Sacramento Kings. The All-Star was playing a lot of minutes since the Mavericks traded Luka Doncic and had several rotational players injured.
However, Irving said on his Twitch stream that he “didn’t have a fatigue injury.”
“So I feel like this ties hand in hand because even after I got injured, certain (NBA) media members were coming out trying to blame J-Kidd (Jason Kidd) or blame the Dallas Mavericks,” Irving said. “You know and all this other stuff, they were trying to blame people because I was playing a lot of minutes. I’m telling you right now if you ask 95% of the league, there’s another 5% that don’t really care when they play, but you ask 95% of the league if they’d rather play 15 minutes or 35 minutes a night, I guarantee you 95% of them would say 35 minutes.
“I led the league in minutes. So what? Like you guys are blaming other people. It doesn’t bother me. I play professional sports. My job is to be conditioned at a very high level. I had to step on (Jonas) Valanciunas’s foot for me to be off-balance and get injured. I didn’t get injured from fatigue. I didn’t have a fatigue injury. I take great care of my body. You know what I mean?”
Irving averaged 24.7 points, 4.8 rebounds and 4.6 assists this season for the Mavericks while shooting 47.3% from the field, 40.1% from beyond the arc and 91.6% from the free-throw line. He made his ninth All-Star team.
The Mavericks signed Irving to a three-year, $126 million contract in July 2023. Irving has a player option worth $43,962,963 for next season.
A future Hall of Famer, Irving has played for the Cleveland Cavaliers, Boston Celtics, Brooklyn Nets and Mavericks. He has career averages of 23.7 points, 4.1 rebounds and 5.6 assists.
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