MACAO — Kyrie Irving will keep playing as long as he loves being in the NBA, the Dallas Mavericks guard said Sunday after his first game in 587 days. Irving scored 17 points in 21:56 of a 132-115 preseason win over the Houston Rockets at The Venetian Arena.
The game was his first since he tore the ACL in his left knee on March 3, 2025, in the first quarter of a 122-98 loss to the Sacramento Kings. He missed the final 20 games of the 2024-25 season and all of 2025-26.
Irving turned 34 in March and is entering his 16th NBA season. The Cleveland Cavaliers made him the first overall pick in 2011, and he won a championship with Cleveland in 2016. He is a nine-time All-Star.
Several guards near his age have stepped away in recent years. Russell Westbrook announced his retirement on Aug. 12 after 18 seasons.
Kyrie Irving Says Love Of NBA Will Determine When He Retires
Irving does not measure his career in terms of how many seasons he has left. As long as he can wake up every day, step out of bed, and feel good, he plans to keep going.
“I don’t really think about it in terms of just how much longer I’m going to keep playing,” Irving said. “I’m always going to be around the basketball community, whether I’m in the NBA or not. I feel like my purpose is a lot bigger than just that. But just when I’m entertaining and getting to perform and be a leader alongside some of my other teammates in the NBA, and still be an impactful player, still go out there and demand excellence, demand greatness for myself, as long as I can wake up every day and step out of bed and feel good, I’m gonna continue to play.”
“And the support around me is incredible as well. I’ve built a great support system that goes well beyond the court,” Irving continued. “So basketball is the easy part. Preparing for it is the harder part. There’s the unseen hours, it’s the lifting, it’s the daily routines, daily schedules that kind of gets the best of you sometimes, gets tiring. But when you love something, when you love what you do, I think all you guys can attest to it in some type of capacity. When you love what you do every day, it doesn’t feel like a job.”
“And ever since I came into the league, I’ve learned a lot of lessons about my body, a lot of lessons about getting knocked off kind of the top spot, or where you are at your peak, and then having to go through some of those rehab sessions and just kind of reconstruct who you are on the court,” Irving added. “And I’ve had the, I don’t want to call it a luxury, but I’ve had the experience of just having traumatic injuries and coming back, and I’m grateful I’ve been able to lean on that experience. So I’m gonna keep playing as long as I love just being in the NBA, being around camaraderie, being in a locker room.”
Irving Says Retirement Announcement Will Come On His Terms
When the day does come, Irving expects to announce it himself, possibly on social media or on a livestream.
“And when that day comes, you guys don’t know. I’ll definitely probably tweet it out, go on livestream, or come over here and explain what I’m doing for the next part of my life,” Irving detailed. “But basketball has rewarded me beyond measure. It’s not just about the money aspect anymore. It’s about legacy, and I have my children watching over me as well, or watching, coming up behind me, and the purpose is bigger now. The next generation is watching.”
“I represent something bigger than just the game of basketball, so I’m just leaning into that as well,” Irving noted. “But at the end of the day, I want to win. I’m a competitor. And I appreciate you naming some of those guys who have come before me too, like John Wall and Derrick Rose. Those guys have dealt with traumatic injuries as well and come back and played as long as they could. So I commend those guys. They’ve set a great example for me, and I’m just extending it on behalf of them as well.”
Irving Says ACL Injuries No Longer Have To End Careers
Irving pointed to sports medicine as the reason fewer careers end on a major injury than they did for players before him. A tear at a later age used to raise the question of whether a player could get back to who he was.
“I think back to a large portion size, or some of my peers, some of our predecessors, that their careers ended a little bit earlier because technology or medicine wasn’t as available, sports medicine wasn’t as advanced yet, and they could have extended it,” Irving explained. “But also it is up to the person and the work, and find alternative ways to be able to get back to who you are. And I think we’ve been able to learn over the past few years about what the body’s capable of doing, and we like to defy all the odds, I say myself being included.”
“Just getting injured at a later age back in the day, or early in the years, would be kind of like this sentence of a question of whether or not you can get back to who you are,” Irving continued. “And I think the motivation at this point is bigger for us, because it is about extending our careers, but it’s also most importantly about proving ourselves right and proving the doubters wrong and proving the haters wrong. Like, can you come back to being who you are? I don’t think anybody wants to leave the league injured. Or I don’t think anybody wakes up every day and just kind of looks themselves in the mirror like, ‘I quit.’ That’s one thing I don’t think we’re gonna ever quit on ourselves.”
The work behind those comebacks happens away from games, according to Irving, in hours media members and fans never see.
“And us as hoopers, we love the game beyond just what you guys see,” Irving added. “You guys get to see us perform, some media comes in, interview us, ‘How was practice?’ But there’s a lot of hours that just go unseen, and that’s what I appreciate about my peers and appreciate about others that are continuing to put the work in. They do it out of the love, and I think that’s what’s propelling us.”
“So we like to defy the odds, and I think the next generation is using us as an example, like these injuries aren’t the same anymore. They’re not seen the same anymore, and you have to continue to push if you want to. But if not, and as you get older, then it’s okay, right?” Irving detailed. “I don’t think anybody would have had an ill-willed word to say about me if I was like, ‘You know what, I think I’m done after this, I have a torn ACL.’ Nowadays, we have the opportunity to really sit with doctors, sit with holistic doctors, go overseas, sit with other people that have gone through these injuries, and really come back even better.”
“So I appreciate your words, and I definitely felt like I put in the necessary time and work to be able to be in this position I’m in today,” Irving noted.
Irving averaged 24.7 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 4.6 assists in 50 games in 2024-25 before the injury. In Sunday’s return, he went 6-of-13 from the field, 2-of-6 from 3-point range, and 3-of-3 from the free-throw line, and sat out the fourth quarter.
Dallas hosts the New Orleans Pelicans on Wednesday at American Airlines Center, with tip-off set for 7 p.m. CT.
