The toe injury to Duke freshman Kyrie Irving began as a seemingly trivial matter—but now has turned into something much more serious.
Yesterday afternoon, it was announced that Irving would be out indefinitely while receiving treatment for the injury. Then, after Duke’s 83-48 win over Bradley last night, head coach Mike Krzyzewski said the freshman phenom could be out for the entire season.
“Kyrie’s injury is a serious one,” he said. “It’s being evaluated by our medical team here at Duke and medical people from different parts of the country who are good with foot injuries. Some type of analysis should be done hopefully by a week to 10 days and a course of action will be taken based on that analysis.
“It’s a serious injury. I can’t say anything more because we are learning information but it is serious and whatever final decision is made will [be] obviously what’s in his best interest and his career. Not to save him for any period of time or whatever, but he could be out or a long time.”
Krzyzewski would go on to say that Irving “could be” out for the whole year.
Irving suffered the injury on a drive to the basket against Butler Saturday. He grimaced, then was helped off the court, but briefly returned to the game afterwards.
When Irving returned to campus, he was seen wearing a walking boot, and he was designated as day-to-day for the Bradley game. That prognosis soon became overly optimistic, though, after his foot began swelling, and MRIs were taken. It became even clearer that the injury was more serious than originally thought when associate head coach Steve Wojciechowski told The Chronicle Tuesday night that he “didn’t think” Irving would play Wednesday.
Then, on Wednesday afternoon, Krzyzewski released a statement saying the freshman, who is averaging 17.4 points per game while shooting 53 percent from the floor, would be out indefinitely.
“Kyrie is going to miss an undetermined amount of time with the toe injury,” the statement read. “Our medical staff will continue to monitor the recovery process and he will return to action once it has sufficiently healed. Kyrie is an outstanding player and we are confident that he will bounce back from this setback.”
The injury means sophomore Andre Dawkins is now in the starting lineup, and Nolan Smith will be Duke’s point guard. Seth Curry and Tyler Thornton also look to receive more playing time off the bench. There will be other changes to the Blue Devils’ offense and defense, which remain to be seen.
“When a great player gets hurt and can’t play, it changes everything,” Krzyzewski said after the Bradley game.
Toe injuries can become major problems for players. Many ACC fans remember Ty Lawson’s toe injury late in the 2008-09 season, which hobbled the point guard and kept him out of the ACC Tournament. It is unknown, though, if Irving’s injury in any way resembles Lawson’s.
For now, the team, and its phenom freshman, must wait.
“If you hurt your big toe, that’s what you push off on, it seems like that darn thing shouldn’t be that important, you know, but it is. It just is,” Krzyzewski said. “God bless Kyrie, he wants to play. But we just have to wait and see what happens.”