Kyrie Irving is an amazing talent on the basketball court.
Few players in NBA history have combined his handle, touch, athleticism and confidence to create one of the greatest shot-makers and shot-finishers of all time. His touch off the backboard seems sueprnatural, and he can smoothly pull up form anywhere on the court and swish the ball through the net.
The Cavaliers were the team gifted with his presence when he first entered the league, and he immediately averaged 18.5 points per game and shot 39.9 percent from deep as a rookie, winning Rookie of the Year. The next year he averaged 22.5 points en route to his first All-Star appearance.
The Cavs bottled his offensive brilliance and unleashed it as the co-star alongside LeBron James, and together the pair went to three NBA Finals together, including winning the 2016 championship on the backs of a gutsy game-winning shot in Game 7 by Kyrie Irving.
That offensive brilliance has continued throughout his career. After forcing a trade out of Cleveland, Irving continued to ball out for the Boston Celtics and Brooklyn Nets -- and now most recently with the Dallas Mavericks.
Operating as the co-star to another do-it-all MVP candidate in Luka Doncic, Irving is continuing to thrive. This year he seems poised to make another All-Star Game as he averaged 24.3 points, 4.6 rebounds, 4.9 assists and hits a blistering 44.1 percent of his 3-pointers. Irving made his return to the NBA Finals last season, and when he and Doncic share the court they look poised to make another deep playoffs together.
Yet one thing holds the Mavericks back, and it's something that has dogged Kyrie Irving for years. No, it's not the inconsistent defensive effort -- that can be said for most offensive stars. It's also not the outlandish and sometimes concerning statements about the world and history; to Irving's credit, he has not been an off-court problem of any kind since arriving in Dallas.
No, it's something that the Nets, the Celtics, and especially the Cleveland Cavaliers know far too well: Kyrie Irving cannot play anything close to a full season.
Kyrie Irving is consistently injured
Kyrie Andrew Irving has never suffered a massive injury that cost an entire season and put his career in doubt, but he has also never made it through an NBA season without missing some amount of time.
Irving was the No. 1 pick in the 2011 Draft but played just 11 games as a freshman at Duke due to injury. That impressive rookie year came in only 51 games. The following year he made the All-Star Game as a sophomore but missed 12 of the next 19 games coming out of the All-Star Break.
The healthiest season of Irving's career came in 2014-15, when he played 75 games; yet that was the year LeBron and Kyrie led the team to the NBA Finals and Irving suffered a broken kneecap in Game 1, missing the rest of the series. He was available for the entirety of that magical Finals in 2016, but missed 29 games during that regular season and missed making the All-Star Game.
Since leaving Cleveland things have only gotten worse. The most games that he has played in a single season was 67 in his second season in Boston, and he has otherwise not topped 60 in any one year.
Last season for Dallas he suited up for just 58, and he seems to be on track to miss at least double-digit games this year, if not more. Irving is currently out with a bulging disc in his back and expected to miss another week or two, but that's the type of injury that will need to be managed throughout the year.
Irving will turn 33 years old before the end of the season; he's no spring chicken, and his injury issues figure to only escalate as he ages. Irving's brilliance when he is on the court is unquestioned, but whether he can be on the court is an open question.
Nikola Vucevic was drafted 16th overall in the same 2011 draft as Kyrie Irving. He is clearly not the same level of elite talent that Irving is, but because he has managed to stay reasonably healthy he has played in 177 more games than Irving over their respective careers. Tobias Harris has played 175 more. Role players like Bismack Biyombo and Cory Joseph have been consistently more available.
Irving's teammate now on the Mavericks, Klay Thompson, missed 2.5 entire seasons in the middle of his prime and still has logged 67 more games. In all, 12 players from his draft class have logged more games played than Irving; fellow Cavalier Tristan Thompson is at 794 and he even retired once.
The Dallas Mavericks have enjoyed the heights of Kyrie Irving basketball the past few seasons, and they rode it to the NBA Finals last year. Yet there are costs to employing Irving, and the Mavericks are realizing that they cannot count on him to take the court.
The Cavaliers realized it a long time ago and managed to catch lightning in a bottle for a few seasons of brilliance. Can the Mavericks do the same?