Kyrie Irving may be taking the 2025-26 season as a full-on gap year.
The injured Dallas Mavericks star Irving will not be playing before the NBA trade deadline, Tim MacMahon of ESPN reported this week on the “Howdy Partners” podcast. MacMahon also cast doubt on the potential of Irving playing at all this season.
“Kyrie is not coming back before the trade deadline,” MacMahon said, per ClutchPoints.
“I don’t know at this point if Kyrie is playing this season,” added MacMahon. “I know he wants to. We’ll see if that’s in his best interest. We’ll see if it’s in the franchise’s best interest. Those are things that need to be sorted out.”
The nine-time All-Star Irving tore the ACL in his left knee during a game in early March 2025 (see the video here) and has been sidelined ever since. ACL tears generally tend to be 9-to-12-month injuries, so Irving is just about nearing completion of that timeline.
Of course, complicating matters is Irving’s age (he will be turning 34 in a couple of months) as well as the Mavericks’ poor record this season. Dallas is at just 14-24 on the year, which has them outside of the play-in tournament zone in an extremely difficult Western Conference.
A few months ago, we heard a much more optimistic report about Irving’s recovery. But with Dallas continuing to struggle and Irving now under contract with the Mavericks through 2028 (pursuant to a recent extension), it might not make much sense for him to return to the court this year.
