NEW YORK _ Kyrie Irving addressed the media on Saturday for the first time since Nov. 14, the last game he played before sitting out indefinitely with a right shoulder impingement.
For the first time, Irving specifically described what he's been going through with the injury.
"It's very unique, because it's the first time I've ever had such a significant feeling in my shoulder where I'm going up to shoot jump shots and I can't really lift my shoulder to get up in that jump shot position and its impinging," he said.
"There was some bursitis in there that was really, really impacting me going out there and playing my game at a very high level," he said.
Irving's right shoulder impingement, he says, was the byproduct of overuse, dating back to a face injury that cost him much of training camp and the preseason.
"I was trying to make up time in training camp, still throughout that time trying to get ready for the first game of the season. I shot every day," he said. "Late at night after games sometimes, after practice."
Then came the Nov. 4 game against the Pelicans.
"One wrong contest on a shot," Irving said. "I think somebody came and blocked it _ and then after that game our PTs looked at it, they dug on it and I started wearing tape on that road trip."
Irving's last game was Nov. 14 against the Nuggets in Denver. After then, he said, his shoulder got progressively worse.
Eventually he was faced with an ultimatum:
Irving said he received his first cortisone shot on Dec. 24. The effect of those shots can wear off anywhere from days to months.
"You either continue to get cortisone shots, which is obviously detrimental to your health in your muscles, or you go get arthroscopic surgery," he said. "For me, it's just about being able to go back out there after the right amount of rehab, the right amount of rest, recovery, and see what we can do for the rest of the season and then reevaluate after a few months."
Irving did not rule out the possibility of getting surgery before the end of the season _ a process that would put him out of commission for three or four months _ if the cortisone shot does not help.
"It's definitely crossed my mind. I wouldn't be honest with you if I didn't tell you that," Irving said. "But I felt that the next step in the progression is to get the cortisone and see how it responds and then move on from that point. In two months or so, see if it still lasts for a month or could start hurting in the next two weeks. So I'm gonna continue on the process that I'm on of rehabbing and try to get back out there with the guys."
The Nets played the Celtics in Boston on Nov. 27, and when Irving _ who was day-to-day at the time _ didn't travel, many on social media asserted the All-Star guard was scared to play in the city he left in free agency over the summer. Irving addressed that thought on Saturday:
"I think that I myself kind of fell into that cycle of being emotionally attached to something like that, especially when I'm watching the game at home with my family, much to the fact that it wasn't about the players on the floor during that day," he said. "It became about me and where I was and what I was doing."
"I can't control what anyone says about me when I'm not talking or when I am talking or when I'm in an arena or when I'm not," he continued. "People are going to say regardless whatever they feel. I respect that, but at the end of the day it's entertainment, man. It's changing."
Irving says he was just as frustrated as the rest of the world that his recovery timetable was continually pushed back. What was initially ruled a day-to-day injury has now kept him out what is now 10 days shy of two months.
"It really is disheartening when you know you're working your tail off to be at a certain level and your shooting shoulder just starts to give out on you a little bit," he said. "You're looking at it like, let me ice this thing, let me just get back out there and you keep feeling something in your shoulder, and you're trying to explain it to the medical staff, you're trying to explain it to all these experts out there."
Irving says he saw multiple shoulder specialists, including one in Phoenix that he spent two weeks with doing exercises. "Still nothing is happening to get me back on the court, so it's definitely frustrating," he said. "But, like I said, I'm in a better place now. You know, just keep progressing and see where we end up in the next few weeks."
