DALLAS — Kyrie Irving went down on a drive to the basket in the first quarter against the Sacramento Kings on March 3, 2025, at American Airlines Center. He stayed in long enough to make his two free throws, with tears running down his cheeks, before he left the game with a torn ACL in his left knee.
He had surgery later that month. In February, the Dallas Mavericks ruled him out for all of 2025-26, the first full season he had missed in 15 years in the league.
A few days before training camp opened Saturday, Irving got flipped trying to block a shot and landed in a handstand, holding his position. Mavericks coach Dusty May said he had never seen anything like it.
Irving is back on the floor 18 months after the tear, with no restrictions. Max Christie said Sunday that he looks phenomenal. The knee is not the same, Irving said at camp. It was his fourth knee surgery, and he considers himself one of the lucky ones to make it back.
Kyrie Irving On His Fourth Knee Surgery
Former players have started talking openly about the anti-inflammatories and painkillers they took and what those did to their health. Irving wants the industry to take surgery more seriously.
“That’s part of getting surgery. That’s just part of being human, man,” Irving said. “Anytime you go into that surgical room, you’re not going to come out the same. That’s for everybody. You’re either putting something in your body, or you’re taking something out, or you’re kind of rearranging stuff. It’s not the sexy part of the industry. Nobody really wants to hear about it, because it really goes into details about the human aspect and how you feel. And most of the time, everybody just assumes that we’re tough, we can just handle everything.”
“When I say something like it was my fourth knee surgery, no one bats an eye, unless they’ve been through something traumatic like that,” Irving continued. “But yeah, it sucks. Nobody goes into sports wanting to get surgery and then try to come back. And to hear a lot of stories now, especially former players talking openly about the anti-inflammatories they took, the painkillers they took, and how it would affect their stomach lining, how it would affect their health as they grew up. None of that gets taken into account.”
“We just assume that for every accolade, we’re supposed to be driven towards it. Everybody’s supposed to be the same. ‘Are you the same? Are you the same?’ I’m not saying you’re asking that. But I just think we need to take it, in our industry, a little bit more seriously,” Irving added. “When guys go through surgery, they’re not coming off that surgery table the same. The rehab is going to be crappy. It’s going to be shitty. It’s going to try you mentally.”
“And when guys don’t come back and return, it’s not time to throw more on them. Like, they’re not the same player. It’s unfortunate, right? There are a lot of stories of guys that were supposed to continue on for 20-plus years and could not because they were on that surgery table,” Irving detailed.
Before the injury, Irving averaged 24.7 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 4.6 assists in 50 games, shooting 47.3% from the field and 40.1% from three. He turned 34 in March and is entering his 16th season. He re-signed with Dallas on July 6, 2025, on a three-year, $119 million contract that includes a player option for 2027-28.
“So I’m one of the lucky ones, and I don’t look in the mirror and take that for granted. I truly am one of the lucky ones, fortunate ones,” Irving noted. “My work ethic has led me to this point. If I didn’t work on myself, I would not be able to come back. I would have probably just stopped. But because I continue… this goes back to the next generation. I know it’s not just about me.”
“So this is for all my brothers and sisters that have dealt with, like, traumatic injuries or something in their life where you’re going to come back different. And it doesn’t just have to be a physical component either,” Irving said. “Because when I say it to myself, I’m like, yeah, I’m different. But this gives me an opportunity to go out and prove something greater. And that’s all I’m looking forward to, proving something greater for myself, not anyone else, and doing it for a bigger purpose.”
Kyrie Irving On His Return, Dusty May, And Sergio De Larrea
Irving said Saturday that his body is used to sitting on the couch every once in a while. What he’s banking on is getting better with every possession in camp and in the first games of the season.
“I guess you could say that. I don’t know if I necessarily would say old times, but it definitely feels familiar being out there,” Irving explained. “Like I said yesterday, it’s just like riding a bike, and the more possessions that I play, the better I feel. And that’s all I’m really banking on in this training camp and also the first [few] games of the season, just trying to get better on every single possession.”
“My body is used to kind of sitting on the couch every once in a while, but I’m so elated to be back on the court and just being out there with my teammates, having a great time,” Irving continued. “Dusty did a great job of implementing some things and just letting us play off the fly and just be basketball players.”
May had never seen Irving practice before this weekend and said he had no reference point. Dallas hired May from Michigan on June 22, less than three months after he won the national championship.
“He played well. He was engaged,” May said. “He’s just so intelligent as a basketball player. So to see him find solutions, figure things out, communicate with his teammates, very, very encouraging.”
May did not spend time worrying about whether Irving would be limited. He would make the best of whatever hand he was dealt.
“Extremely important, but I don’t waste time thinking about those things. It’s whatever hand is dealt, we’re going to make the best of that situation,” May explained. “And so him being cleared to go obviously makes my and our job much easier, because he’s seen a lot and knows a lot.”
Irving is one of the most recent 50-40-90 shooters in the NBA, May said. With Brooklyn in 2020-21, Irving shot 50.6% from the field, 40.2% from three, and 92.2% from the free-throw line.
“And then you factor in his ability to get wherever he wants to get to on the floor, make any pass, the creativity he plays with. I could go on and on,” May said. “He got flipped a couple days ago trying to block a shot and actually landed and maintained position in a handstand. I’m not sure many of you guys could do that in that situation. I’ve never seen it. So I don’t think we have enough time to talk about all the things that Ky brings to the table.”
May has told Irving he will depend on him for communication as well as leadership, and Irving calls it a collaboration. He also warned that a roster full of younger players who don’t yet know each other’s cues will look rough at times.
“It’s meant a lot to me, just from the standpoint of me being a veteran and also going through a circumstance like this where you have a first-year head coach, and he is very open-minded, upfront about what he means and what he says, and in his actions he’s going to live by it,” Irving said. “So if he said he’s leaning on me, how I interpret it, and I don’t speak for him, but at the same time, I interpret it as this is a collaboration. He has a wealth of knowledge. I have a wealth of knowledge. I still have a lot of room to grow.”
“Because we do have younger guys, we’re not just coming into every game with everybody knowing each other’s cues. We’re going to kind of look like an ugly offense and defense at times, so be prepared for that,” Irving continued. “But we are quick learners here. We do have guys that have been on high-level teams that are used to winning.”
Irving has also been in a shooting group with rookie Sergio de Larrea, the 25th overall pick in June. Told that de Larrea had called him the perfect guy to learn from, Irving laughed and joked that he had given the rookie $1,000.
“He’s a high-IQ player already. He’s a winner, comes from a winning franchise overseas, and you can tell that he’s thirsty for knowledge, and that’s what you want in a young guy,” Irving said. “And he’s very tall for his [position]. And when you come into this league and you’re playing against guys like me, 6-2 and below, we’re going to get up underneath. So I think part of him is just adjusting to the physicality, adjusting to the pace, the quickness, and I think he’ll be fine.”
“He’s going to be learning on the fly just like a lot of our young guys, but he can always lean on me, lean on a lot of the other guards, a lot of the other wings. We have tons of them right now, which I’m so grateful for,” Irving detailed. “We all share the same sentiment that we want to see each other do well. So we’re rooting for him, and he works his butt off, and that’s all you got to do.”
Kyrie Irving And Cooper Flagg On Building Together
Cooper Flagg won Rookie of the Year last season after averaging 21.0 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 4.5 assists in 70 starts. He led Dallas in points, rebounds, assists, and steals. The Mavericks drafted him first overall in June 2025, more than three months after Irving got hurt, and the two have never played a regular-season game together.
Irving turns 35 in March, and Flagg turns 20 in December. The age gap comes up in every conversation on social media, Irving said Saturday, and he doesn’t mind. The two built camaraderie off the court over the summer, including at the minicamps Irving hosted in Los Angeles.
“I just think the basketball community somehow forgets that when you have great players on one team, and you have guys that are selfless, and we’ve built some camaraderie off the court, me and Cooper, and especially young guys coming in, that will be part of our success,” Irving said. “Us being able to have little mini camps. Young guys have been in the gym all summer long. I’ve been recovering. We just got to see where the pieces fit and then live with the results on that end.”
Irving sees his role as complementing where the franchise is headed. He called it part of a rebuild, something he had not been in at any point in his career.
“There’s a lot of gratitude just for what we have, and a lot of things that are still being written. And we do have a young, budding superstar on this team that’s really hungry to make his name well known, and he already has,” Irving said. “So you have a direction that we’re heading in. And for me, it’s just to complement that direction, continue to be a leader, and continue to be one of the best players in the world.”
Flagg handled the ball often as a rookie. With Irving back, the offense gets a player comfortable on and off the ball.
“He knows that I like to play off the ball and on the ball. I think that’s a skill that we added to our offense this year, especially with Coop handling the ball as often as he did last year,” Irving said. “You’ll see some interesting offensive [things] that I’m interested to let play out against the best competition in the world. So Dusty’s been great.”
May expects Flagg to make a big jump as a shooter this season, in part because of the players around him. He watched the two work together from the first day of camp.
“You have two elite offensive players, two guys that have great defensive instincts as well,” May said. “And so every day, it’s those guys working together with the other three players and finding the right rhythm, the right tempo, the right solutions for the problems. And today they took a step forward to being proficient at it.”
The time they spent on the court together this summer built a connection, according to Flagg. Both said at media day that playing together will come easy.
“Kai’s one of those guys, playing alongside him, I feel like he just makes it easy to play with him,” Flagg said. “Obviously, he’s one of the greats of our game and he’s an incredible talent. But I think that combined with his personality makes it really easy to fit next to and play with. And I think the time that we’ve been able to spend in the summer on the court together has been really good for both of us to kind of build that connection.”
Irving has also called himself part of a rebuild in Dallas. The Mavericks play the Houston Rockets on Oct. 9 and Oct. 11 at The Venetian Arena in Macao and open the regular season at Houston on Oct. 21 at 7:30 p.m. CT.
