After losing Kyrie Irving to a season-ending knee injury this week, Dallas Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd lashed out at media speculation over the All-Star’s increased workload over the last month.
Irving tore the ACL in his left knee Monday night during the first quarter of the Mavericks 122-98 loss to the Sacramento Kings. In the wake of the season-crippling injury for Dallas, some reporters have questioned whether Irving’s minutes deserve any of the blame. Kidd, however, was quick to squash that narrative while addressing the media before getting blown out by the Milwaukee Bucks Wednesday night.
“The load didn’t have anything to do with the injury,” Kidd insisted. “We’re talking about one play, not any other plays before that. He steps on Valančiūnas’ 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.”
“Did he complain about the minutes? No,” Kidd said of Irving. “Did the fans complain about the minutes? No, because they pay to come see him play…He’s well-conditioned. He invited that, he wanted that. But are we reporting that? Are we? 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 to play and he loves to play and it’s alright to play 40 minutes at the age of 32 in a month 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 the hearts.”
Dallas traded away a 25-year-old generational player in Luka Dončić because of health concerns, they lost Anthony Davis and Kyrie Irving to injuries, their season and reputation are in shambles, so naturally, Jason Kidd has pivoted to taking his frustrations out on the media.
Maybe it was just a freak accident. Maybe Kyrie Irving would have stepped on Valančiūnas’ foot and suffered a season-ending ACL injury even if he was only averaging 30 minutes per game. But when you have a 32-year-old, injury-prone point guard averaging more than 39 minutes per game since the Dončić trade, it seems reasonable for reporters to at least question whether there was a correlation.