Irving has been in the gym regularly doing light on-court workouts over the past month, but until Saturday, the Mavericks were hesitant to put any sort of timetable on the 33-year-old\u2019s return.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we do see Kyrie shooting, can we refrain from saying, \u2018Ahead of schedule?\u2019\u201d Kidd said at Mavericks media day in September. \u201cThat\u2019s bad reporting. I\u2019m just giving you the answer to the test. He\u2019s doing quite well as we can see. But he\u2019s not ahead of schedule. Let\u2019s not say that. It\u2019s unfair to him and the Mavs. Is he on schedule? It looks like it. A lot of positive things are happening. But the report that he\u2019s ahead of schedule is not fair.\u201d<\/p>\n
Recovery from an ACL tear typically takes nine months, at minimum. If Irving is able to return sometime in late December \u2014 a possibility, based on Kidd\u2019s comments \u2014 he would be roughly nine months post-surgery.<\/p>\n
Last season, Irving was only able to play in one game with Anthony Davis. Davis got hurt in his first game with the Mavericks on Feb. 8. Roughly three weeks later, Irving planted on a Kings player\u2019s foot and had to be carried off the floor with structural damage in his left knee.<\/p>\n
Davis is out again for Dallas. He suffered a left calf strain on Wednesday. He will miss the Mavericks\u2019 next two games at least.<\/p>\n
With Irving sidelined this season, the Mavericks have opted to give Cooper Flagg heavy minutes at point guard. They entered Saturday\u2019s game against the Detroit Pistons in Mexico City ranked dead last in the NBA in offensive rating.<\/p>\n
Kidd sounded optimistic about the possibility of pairing Irving and Flagg together.<\/p>\n
\u201cKai is going to be a perfect fit with Cooper Flagg,\u201d Kidd said. \u201cWhen you talk about his skillset, being able to dribble and score, he also creates space on the floor for Cooper. And vice versa. Cooper creates space for Kai.\u201d<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Christian Clark<\/a> is an NBA reporter for The Athletic who is based in Dallas. Previously, he covered the New Orleans Pelicans for NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. Follow Christian on X @Christianpclark<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Irving has been in the gym regularly doing light on-court workouts over the past month, but until Saturday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,73388,105],"class_list":["post-113510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-kyrie-irving-return","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}