Kyrie Irving is tired of hearing one popular narrative about his recent ACL injury.
Speaking this week on what appeared to be a video game stream, the Dallas Mavericks guard Irving addressed the controversial claim that his high-minute load was supposedly to blame for his ACL tear earlier this month. Irving said, in colorful language, that the claim was nonsense.
“[They were trying to] blame the Dallas Mavericks,” said Irving. “They were trying to blame [them] because I was playing a lot of minutes. I’m telling you right now … if you ask 95 percent of the league if they would rather be playing 15 minutes or 35 minutes a night, I guarantee you 95 percent of them would say 35 minutes.
“I led the league in minutes, so the f–k what?” Irving added. “So the f–k what?”
You can see the video of Irving’s remarks here (but obviously look out for the bad language).
About to turn 33 years old later this month, the nine-time All-Star Irving tore his left ACL during a game against the Sacramento Kings on March 3. He was driving to the basket and collided with Kings big man Jonas Valanciunas, causing Irving’s left knee to bend awkwardly upon his landing (video here).
Prior to the injury, Irving was indeed seeing a significant workload as former co-star Luka Doncic had been sidelined since Christmas Day due to a calf injury and then was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers in early February. Since the last time that he shared the floor with Doncic as his teammate, Irving was averaging a ridiculous 38.3 minutes per game (over a span of roughly two months).
But a few weeks ago, Irving had already indicated in a social media post that his injury was simply the result of an unfortunate mishap. Now Irving, who may also be at peace with things since his ACL tear is reportedly unlikely to affect his financial future, is using much stronger language to get his point across.
