Kyrie Irving injury scratches vs Cavs in Cleveland seem awfully convenient

The Cleveland Cavaliers host the Boston Celtics tonight, and as has been the case often since the Kyrie Irving trade to Boston, Irving is reportedly out versus the Cavs in Cleveland tonight due to injury.

I don’t know about you, but when I watch the Cleveland Cavaliers these days, it’s tough. It wasn’t too long ago that Cleveland had both LeBron James and Kyrie Irving breaking down opposing defenses, and the Cavs were cruising through the Eastern Conference. Now Cleveland has neither, as you know, and are now focused on their full-rebuild, which is understandable.

Nonetheless, since the Cavaliers reportedly traded Irving to the Boston Celtics, Irving has had some pretty darn convenient injury scratches when he’s been slated to play the Cavs in Cleveland. Here’s the list of when Irving is slated to play both the Cavs in Boston and in Cleveland for just this season thus far, courtesy of Chris Forsberg of NBCSBoston (h/t NBC Sports Boston Report).

That same report would go on to say that since the Irving trade to the C’s in August of 2017, “he’s missed every game that the Celtics have played in Cleveland.”

Obviously, that bit of information was false; for one, I was at that first Irving game as a Celtic when he played in Cleveland. As the comment on that article noted, it was the game where Gordon Hayward had a gruesome lower leg injury, reportedly fracturing his tibia and dislocating his ankle in his first regular season game as a Celtic.

Kyrie and LeBron bro-hugged after the game, too (per Bleacher Report), further disproving that bit of information in that article.

The point remains from that Forsberg tweet in the piece, though.

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These injuries seem pretty minor for Irving when he plays the Cavs, and especially when he’s been on track to play them in Cleveland.

I understand he and the C’s would publicly dismiss my questioning of his convenient injury scratches when he has a road Cavs game on the schedule (they won’t see this article probably, anyway, and that’s fine), but I still am very skeptical.

According to the aforementioned NBC Sports Boston Report, “Irving was expected to play until the Celtics announced his status on Monday.”

Of course he was expected to play. I get it, Irving’s reportedly missing the C’s game tonight due to a left hip strain, and Aron Baynes will be out with a left foot contusion, along with Marcus Morris with right knee soreness (per a Celtics’ team announcement).

Boston probably thinks they won’t (and definitely don’t) need those two players against an 11-win Cavs team, and I get the scratch in that case.

This sort of thing just adds to the Irving narrative with the Cleveland Cavaliers, and how you never know with the guy, really.

The fact that him and LeBron are reportedly “cool now,” per The Athletic’s Joe Vardon (subscription required) is just another slap in the face to the Cleveland fan base from Irving, really.

Anyhow, Cleveland fans would probably love to see Irving play at some point in The Land, but that’s rarely happened since he was traded to Boston. That figures.