The Dallas Mavericks might have lost the next two years of their competitive window. Kyrie Irving tore his ACL in a recent game, ruling him out for this season and likely a considerable chunk of next season as well. The injury happened during the Mavericks’ loss to the Sacramento Kings and is another devastating blow in a hellacious 30-day span for Mavericks fans.
Many fans saw the injury coming after Irving regularly averaged nearly 40 minutes per game after the Doncic trade. Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd resents this implication, going off on a lengthy rant about people blaming the Mavs for this.
“The truth to that question is so far false or being misrepresented in the sense that the load didn’t have anything to do with the injury. We’re talking about one play, not the many plays before that. He steps on (Jonas) Valanciunas’ foot. It’s a freak accident. That’s how it should be reported, but we’re not reporting it right. We’re reporting on conspiracy theories.”
“We want our stars to play as many minutes. This isn’t supposed to be a rest league. Kai is our leader. Kai was playing minutes. He also was playing at a high level, maybe some of the best basketball that he’s played in his career. And it’s alright to play 40 minutes. We can’t talk from both sides and say that our stars don’t play enough minutes or guys don’t play enough. They rest and now we’re saying that they’re playing too much. So that means the media is taking it the wrong way.”
“We’ve had two players in that game have injuries. Both sprained ankles. Both stepping on someone’s foot. We just report it as facts, not our opinion. Did [Kyrie] complain about the minutes? No. Do the fans complain about the minutes? No, because they pay to come see him play. The injury is what happened. The fact is that him stepping on Valanciunas’ foot was a freak accident, but it happens in sports. We’re reporting wrong. The report is wrong.”
“Because he played the most minutes or he’s one of the top three. He should be one of the top three. He’s well conditioned and he invited that. He wanted that. Are we reporting that? No, we’re not reporting that. We’re reporting that we’re running someone into the ground.”
“That’s not true. That’s his job, it’s to play. He loves to play. It’s alright to play 40 minutes at the age of 32 in a month’s span. This isn’t the whole season. I think sometimes we’re taking things a little bit too far or we’re not really telling the truth because we want the likes or we want the hearts or we want someone to put us up on this platform but we’re not telling the whole truth because it was a freak accident. It happened early in a game.”
“We should be promoting our athletes to play more minutes, play more games. But are we? That’s the media’s job. To make something that is not true, for most people to believe. It’s wrong. It’s bad reporting. I disagree with whoever said it and whoever is trying to paint that picture that we’re running people into the ground.”
I think it’s wrong. Take the money out of it. This is a basketball game. 48 minutes and we’re all trying to win. We all compete and we do our jobs at a high level. People pay to see the stars play. Kai was out there playing. Unfortunately, with all the injuries, his minutes had to go up. I think someone asked me about is Klay going to play more minutes the other night. We will get there. At some point, he’s going to have to play more minutes.”
“As deeper the season gets, the games get bigger. You start to play your stars more minutes and get them ready for the playoffs. Because the rotation gets shorter and stars play more minutes, but what do I know?”
Kidd dropped these remarks before the team’s matchup against the Milwaukee Bucks, one they lost comprehensively by 30 points (107-137), as the current roster just isn’t equipped to be a competitive Western Conference contender anymore.
Even if it was a freak injury, the fact that Irving was playing such heavy minutes with his injury history and back issues this season was wild to begin with. They needed his production, but his body was at risk for injury and the Mavericks gambled on him staying healthy.
He was averaging 27.8 points, 5.9 rebounds, and 4.2 assists in 39.4 minutes per game (nine appearances) in games after the Doncic trade.
With Irving sidelined for an extended period, the Mavericks are in the middle of the worst-case scenario after the Doncic trade. They don’t have perimeter creators left on the roster outside minimum guard Spencer Dinwiddie and also have almost their entire rotational frontcourt on the injury list.
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