Kyrie Irving Is Back After 19 Months and He's Facing Kevin Durant in Macao

MACAO — Nineteen months. That's how long it's been since Kyrie Irving played in an actual basketball game. Not a practice, not a scrimmage, not a rehab workout with a camera pointed at it — a real game, with a real opponent, keeping a real score. That ends this weekend, when the Mavericks face the Rockets in the NBA China Games at The Venetian Arena, and the basketball world gets to find out what the last year and a half did to one of the most gifted ball-handlers the sport has ever seen.

First-year Mavericks coach Dusty May told reporters today that Irving will appear in one of the two Macao games — Friday, Oct. 9 or Sunday, Oct. 11 — with the specific game still to be determined, per reporting from Bobby Karalla and Christian Clark via HoopsHype, with Marc Stein also on it. So no, we're not getting a full double-feature. But we're getting something, and after 19 months, something is everything.

To understand why this matters, you have to go back to the night it happened. March 3, 2025. First quarter of a home game against the Sacramento Kings — a 122-98 loss that nobody remembers the score of, but everybody remembers the moment. Irving tore the ACL in his left knee, and in one of the most Kyrie moments imaginable, he stayed on the court to shoot his two free throws before leaving the game in tears. That's the last time we saw him in a game that counted.

And then the rehab refused to cooperate. A calf strain last December set his recovery back eight weeks — eight weeks gone, just like that. Then, on Feb. 18, the hammer: Irving was ruled out for the entire 2025-26 season. Not a delayed return. Not "we'll see in March." The whole season, gone.

Here's what a lost season looked like in Dallas. Without their nine-time All-Star, the Mavericks went 26-56. That's not a competitive team having a rough year — that's a lottery team wearing a contender's clothes. And while Irving was in the weight room, the franchise he'd been leading quietly became a different franchise. Luka Dončić had already been traded to the Lakers the previous February. The torch didn't just get passed — the whole building got remodeled around someone else: Cooper Flagg, the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft and the reigning Rookie of the Year, a 19-year-old who has never — never — shared an NBA court with Kyrie Irving.

"I'm really excited to be able to share the court with Kyrie. He's obviously a special, special player."— Cooper Flagg, 19, via Reuters

That pairing is the whole season for Dallas. Not hyperbole — it's the thing everyone in the organization is waiting on. Irving's last full season (2024-25) was a masterclass: 24.7 points, 4.8 rebounds, 4.6 assists, 1.3 steals across 50 games, shooting 47.3% from the field and 40.1% from deep. If the 34-year-old version of that player exists — and that's a genuine if for a 34-year-old guard 19 months removed from an ACL tear — then the Flagg-Irving two-man game is appointment viewing for the entire league.

Irving himself sounds like a man who knows exactly what the questions are and is done entertaining them. "Conditioning is going great. I feel great," he told reporters in Macao. "Practices do wonders but the game is, it can't be recreated. So I'm excited to strap up my boots, get out there, throw on my uniform, play in front of these great fans here, and continue to have a strong pre-season." And for anyone still wondering about the knee: "I think I'm ready to go out there and kick some butt."

The people who actually have to sign off on the knee agree. ANTA told Dallas Sports Journal that Irving is cleared to play in Macao with no restrictions — which, for a 34-year-old guard in the first week of preseason coming off an ACL and a calf setback, is about as strong a medical statement as you get. Oh, and the shoe company isn't just vouching for him: his KAI 3 "Macao Hearts" drops Oct. 10, the day after the opener. The comeback has a marketing plan. Of course it does.

Then there's the other storyline, the one the league office is quietly thrilled about. Standing across the court in Macao: Kevin Durant, now a Houston Rocket. Durant and Irving were teammates in Brooklyn at the start of the decade until the whole thing split apart in February 2023. The NBA's official X account posted a video Oct. 6 of Durant saying he'd like to add Irving's ball-handling to his own game — and Irving answered with love: "Shoutout to my brother KD man. All respect. It's mutual... I love you brother."

That's the subplot that makes this weekend bigger than a preseason cameo. Kyrie's first game back isn't against some random September opponent in an empty gym — it's against KD, in an NBA-produced showcase, on the other side of the world, with his new shoe dropping the next morning. You cannot script a better stage for a return.

And Dallas needs him to be good in a hurry, because the frontcourt is held together with tape right now. The Mavericks are monitoring Dereck Lively II (foot), Santi Aldama (knee, after arthroscopic surgery) and Morez Johnson Jr. (lower leg), per EssentiallySports' Mavs-Rockets preview. A thin frontcourt is exactly why a healthy Kyrie matters more, not less — when you can't win the rebounding battle, you need the guy who can create a good shot out of nothing, and nobody alive does that better than a healthy Kyrie Irving.

What comes after Macao is the real thing. Dallas opens the 2026-27 regular season Oct. 21 in Houston — against these same Rockets, in their building, with the games finally counting. One preseason appearance is a milestone. The next six months decide what it was a milestone toward.

Nineteen months ago, Kyrie Irving stayed on a court in Dallas to shoot two free throws on a torn ACL, then walked off in tears. This weekend, in Macao, he walks back on. Everything about the Mavericks' season — the Flagg pairing, the post-Luka era, the whole fragile math of a 34-year-old guard's second act — starts with those first minutes. We'll be watching every one of them. More in today's NBA daily roundup →