Kyrie Irving's History of Returning From Injuries Shows Mavericks He Can Still Be Elite

Dallas Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving is back after an ACL injury in March of 2025. It has been a long, slow recovery for the 9-time All-Star, but he wanted to make sure he was 100% before returning.

The preseason starts in 10 days, and it seems as if Irving plans to play. While he's 34 and coming off a major injury, Irving's history of returning from injury suggests that he should be the same player we all know once the season begins.

Credit to Sam Vecenie of the "Game Theory" podcast, who pointed this out on his recent podcast.

Kyrie is the difference between Dallas fighting for a play-in berth or losing a ton of games this year. The good news? His history coming back from serious injury is as strong as any player. pic.twitter.com/ciNyi2tQnZ
— Sam Vecenie (@Sam_Vecenie) September 28, 2026

Kyrie Irving's Injury History

As Venecie mentioned, Irving has had a handful of serious injuries, starting with a fractured kneecap in the 2015 NBA Finals. He had been dealing with knee tendinitis in the conference finals, then suffered the major injury in Game 1 of the NBA Finals.

Irving missed the first two months of the 2015-16 season as he recovered from the injury, and then it took him a little while to get back into the swing of things. From the start of February through the end of the regular season, though, he was back to being electric, averaging 21.7 PPG and 5.2 APG.

In the 2016 playoffs, Irving averaged 25.2 PPG while being the second-best player on the championship Cleveland Cavaliers, hitting one of the biggest shots in NBA history with the three-point shot on the right wing over Stephen Curry in the final minute of Game 7.

In 2018, Irving had two surgeries to remove some hardware from the fractured kneecap injury, taking out a wire and screws that were irritating his patella. That kept him out for the last month of the 2017-18 season, as well as the playoffs.

In 2018-19, Irving was an All-Star and an All-NBA Second Team selection while averaging 23.8 PPG, a career-high 6.9 APG, and 5.0 RPG while still being efficient with the Boston Celtics.

Sep 25, 2026; Dallas, TX, USA; Dallas Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving (11) poses for a photo during the Mavericks media day at American Airlines Center. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

In the 2019-20 season, his first with the Brooklyn Nets, Irving tried to play through a shoulder injury while Kevin Durant recovered from his torn Achilles, but he ended up having surgery on the shoulder late in the season.

In the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season, Irving averaged 26.9 PPG and 6.0 APG while being named an All-Star and being selected to the All-NBA Third Team.

There was also the dispute about the vaccine that Vecenie mentioned, but I wanted to specifically focus on injuries.

The big difference is that Irving is now 34 years old and coming off the most significant injury of his career. Even with that, his teammates expect him to be the same player, just more of a leader for the young guys around him.

Add us as a preferred source on Google