Kyrie Irving is in Charlotte this weekend for the NBA’s All-Star festivities and, should he continue to progress from the right knee strain that sidelined him this week, he’ll be on the court Sunday fulfilling his duties as a fan-voted starter for Team LeBron.
Make no mistake, it won’t be great optics if Irving plays. Irving missed the Celtics' final two games before the break and it will be hard for many fans to reconcile him participating in a glorified exhibition game. It’s like when a kid stays home from school “sick” but claims to be recovered for a fun after-school activity.
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Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge was initially leery as well. But Irving was headed to Charlotte regardless of game participation, not only because of NBA and sponsorship obligations, including being a coach of the Rising Stars Challenge on Friday night, but also because he had planned to take a group of family and friends along for the experience before he injured his knee earlier this month.
The Celtics' training staff suggested that, if Irving was 100 percent healthy and cleared for all activities before the game Sunday, that the weekend’s activities might offer a chance to engage in the sort of light basketball work he might otherwise seek in his normal recovery.
Both Ainge and Celtics coach Brad Stevens signed off on the idea with the promise that Irving would be at full health. Irving was accompanied to Charlotte by team trainer Brian Dolan, along with Irving’s personal trainer, Robin Pound.
Ainge said he has full confidence that neither Dolan nor Pound would allow Irving to play if there was any concern about his health. The Celtics are not scheduled to practice as a team until Wednesday, when they will fly to Milwaukee and have an afternoon practice the day before the Thursday showdown with the East-leading Bucks.
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Before the victory over the Pistons on Wednesday night, Stevens explained the team's reasoning behind letting Irving play.
“[Irving has] been day-to-day, I think that there would be a chance that, if we played Friday or Saturday that he’d be cleared, and I guess my thought would be, if he would have been cleared for us on Friday or Saturday, then he should probably play [in the All-Star Game],” said Stevens. "If there’s any issues at all and he’s not 110 percent, I would not play.
"The reason I say that is because you’re going to have to get your basketball activity in regardless. You need to get up and down the court. We can’t do anything, per NBA rules, until mid-next week when we get back together. To me, it makes sense, if he’s 100 percent. He’s gotta be 100 percent.”
This is not to suggest that the only basketball Irving could have found this weekend in Charlotte was the All-Star Game. Still, the Celtics seem confident that the nature of this weekend’s activities will help Irving shake off some rust while not putting him at too much risk for further injury.
Still, the Celtics will have to hold their breath, because an Irving reaggravation that costs him any more regular-season games would be an especially bad look. Still, the case the team makes is that he’d be just as much at risk in a team-controlled environment as he will be in the alley-oop fest that is the All-Star Game.
Let’s remember, too, that Irving’s most important chore in Charlotte might simply be schmoozing. It’s a chance to cross paths with, say, Anthony Davis and give him some insight on what the future holds for Irving and the Celtics.
As long as Irving is healthy and on the court on Thursday night in Milwaukee, his All-Star participation will ultimately be a tiny blip on a Celtics season filled with more noteworthy drama. But it certainly does little to pluck Irving from the spotlight he’s lived in for much of the past month.
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