Kyrie Irving says social media and gambling changed the NBA, and he doesn’t see himself playing at 42

Kyrie Irving is two days away from his first regular-season game in more than 19 months, and he already has a rough idea of when he wants to stop. It is not at 42.

The Dallas Mavericks guard was asked after practice on Monday how much longer he wants to play, and whether stars who keep going deep into their late 30s and early 40s inspire him to do the same. His answer took about two minutes, and it was less about his knee than about how the league around him has changed.

“Not the same NBA that I fell in love with”

Irving started with the part that has not changed. “I love those guys, but I don’t share the same sentiments as them in certain cases,” he said. “I’ve been able to put the NBA in perspective, coming in at 19. Sixteen years. I don’t look at it as comparing my years to other people, but just how much love do I still have for it.”

That love, he said, is not limited to NBA arenas. He talked about playing outside with his kids, lowering the rim in his backyard so he can “still dunk on people,” and teaching the game to his son and his cousins on small hoops inside the house. “Basketball is eternal flame,” he said. “I’m always gonna be around it.”

The NBA life is a different question. Irving listed the weightlifting, the unseen hours and the media prep that come with being ready to play at a high level, and then named what bothers him most.

“You have social media and gambling right now, which is just running rampant, and it’s not the same NBA that I fell in love with as a kid, and I’m very much aware of that,” he said. “And I don’t say that as a negative thing. It’s just when I came in, we were not doing tipping and gambling meetings.”

He added that mental health was “like this foreign subject” when he entered the league in 2011. “So I think the game has changed. It’s become less human. It’s more robotic,” Irving said. “And I think my next few years, I kind of look at it as like, do I really love that aspect of it? I love the playing, I love the competition, but do I love all the hoopla that goes into it?”

He also pointed at the players coming in behind him. “The next generation is looking at it, and they’re making money younger. Addictions are running rampant,” he said, adding that his purpose is “bigger than just playing in the NBA.”

A nod to LeBron, and a line at 42

Then came the line that will follow him all season. “I don’t see myself playing in the NBA at 42, 43,” Irving said, before giving a “shout out” to the “head honcho” who is still going. That is a clear nod to his former Cleveland teammate LeBron James, who starts his age-42 season with Philadelphia on Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden.

Irving also mentioned Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant among the stars he once looked at “like big brothers.” “But now that I’m in this age of 34, 35, I love my manhood and growing as a man, more importantly than just growing as a basketball player,” he said.

It is worth being clear about what he did not say. Irving did not set a retirement date, and nothing in his answer suggested this season is his last. He is 34, he turns 35 in March, and he framed the next few years as a check-in with himself about whether he still enjoys everything around the games.

Why the timing matters for Dallas

The comments land at an odd moment, because Irving has rarely looked more ready to play. He tore the ACL in his left knee on March 3, 2025, against Sacramento, and missed all of last season, when the Mavericks went 26-56. In his last full year before the injury, 2024-25, he averaged 24.7 points, 4.8 rebounds and 4.6 assists in 50 games and made his ninth All-Star team.

His preseason went about as well as Dallas could have hoped. He scored 17 points on 6-of-13 shooting in 22 minutes in his return against Houston in Macao on Oct. 11, then added 18 points and five assists in just 17 minutes against Atlanta in the exhibition finale at American Airlines Center. That is 35 points in 39 minutes across two games, mostly next to reigning Rookie of the Year Cooper Flagg.

Irving said there have been no restrictions on him, and that he plans to take the season “game by game.” The first one is a real test: Dallas opens at the Houston Rockets on Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. ET, which is 3:30 a.m. Thursday in Cairo.

For a team building around a 19-year-old, Irving’s answer is a reminder that the window with him next to Flagg is not open-ended. He is not walking away. He is telling Dallas, and everyone else, that he will decide how long he stays based on whether the league still feels like the game he loves.