Cavs’ Irving Out for Rest of the Year?

David Richard-US PRESSWIRE

While Kyrie Irving is undeniably becoming a superstar in front of our very eyes, his durability still remains in question.

The sophomore point guard sustained a left shoulder injury in the third quarter of Sunday’s game against the Toronto Raptors and is projected to miss up to miss up to four weeks. After team doctors evaluated him on Monday, the team announced that he has a sprain of the acromioclavicular joint in the top of his shoulder.

“We just have to wait and see what happens,” Cavaliers head coach Byron Scott said following Monday’s practice. “I don’t want to speculate and say, ‘Hey, if he can get back he’ll get back. If he can’t, he can’t.’ We’re just going to have to wait until it’s completely healed and go from there.”

The injury concerns are starting to mount against Irving. He has already suffered a hyperextended right knee and a non-displaced fracture to his left index finger earlier this season that has kept him out of 14 games. This past offseason, the 20-year-old All-Star sustained a broken right hand in a Cavalier’s summer league game, injured his jaw in December and suffered a mild concussion and right shoulder sprain last season.

At the college level, Irving missed 26 of the 37 games as a freshman with Duke in the 2010-11 season. Nonetheless, he entered the draft as the No. 1 overall pick, but many suspected that his proneness to injury could be a greater sign of things to come.

Despite these injuries, Scott doesn’t believe the star is injury-prone or fragile in any way.

“He’s still very young and his body hasn’t fully developed,” Scott said. “I’m just not that concerned about it, to be honest with you. All the injuries that he has gotten have been legitimate injuries. It’s not something that keeps recurring over and over again.”

Irving has been without a doubt a young and blossoming superstar in the NBA. In 49 games, he’s tallied a team-best 23 points and 5.7 assists per game to go along with a staggering 22.2 PER. He’s shooting 46 percent from the floor and 41 percent from beyond the arc.