{"id":119712,"date":"2025-01-23T10:50:48","date_gmt":"2025-01-23T15:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=119712"},"modified":"2025-01-23T10:50:48","modified_gmt":"2025-01-23T15:50:48","slug":"mavs-kyrie-irving-career-milestone-18000-points","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/01\/23\/mavs-kyrie-irving-career-milestone-18000-points\/","title":{"rendered":"Mavs Scorer Breaks Down Career Milestone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Dallas Mavericks were unable to complete their comeback against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday night, falling 115-114 in a hard-fought battle. However, eight-time All-Star selection <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/i\/irvinky01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kyrie Irving<\/a> was amazing, finishing the game with 36 points and 9 assists on .571-.364-.1000 shooting splits. As a result, he was able to leave with <em>something<\/em>, to quote the great Denzel Washington.<\/p>\n<h2>Mavs&#8217; Kyrie Irving Breaks Down Career Milestone<\/h2>\n<p>Irving is now just the 83rd player in the NBA&#8217;s nearly 80-year-old history to eclipse 18,000 career points. Among active players, he&#8217;s just the 12th player to reach that milestone. Notably, Irving&#8217;s career scoring average (23.6 points per game) ranks 32nd in NBA history and 14th among active players.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Kyrie\u2019s highlights from tonight\u2019s game against the Timberwolves \ud83d\udc40 <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/M7jr8ld8vC\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/M7jr8ld8vC<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Kyrie Center (@kyriecenterig) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kyriecenterig\/status\/1882268019872993685?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 23, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nAsked about the achievement after the game, Irving became sentimental (h\/t The Smoking Cuban&#8217;s Noah Weber).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m excited about that! Seriously. I was about to drop a tear, no cap.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Kyrie Irving on reaching 18,000 points tonight:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m excited about that! Seriously. I was about to drop a tear, no cap\u2026I feel like I should have been at 18,000 a long time ago\u2026When I heard that, I was like wait I\u2019ve reached 18,000? That\u2019s a lot of ******* points in the best\u2026 <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/mjceQy9Ghq\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/mjceQy9Ghq<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Noah Weber (@noahweber00) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/noahweber00\/status\/1882282699857002898?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 23, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These past few years, the game that I missed and the injuries, I feel like I should have been at 18,000 a long time ago,&#8221; he admits. &#8220;But I&#8217;m grateful man. When I heard that, I was like wait I\u2019ve reached 18,000? That\u2019s a lot of ******* points in the best league in the world for a 6-foot-1 guard like myself\u2026<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m excited to celebrate, not only with myself selfishly right, but with my family because they&#8217;ve been right there with me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3>Putting It All In Perspective<\/h3>\n<p>As he&#8217;s known to do, the 32-year-old then took a big picture view.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Some guys never even get a chance to reach 10,000 or 5,000,&#8221; he notes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I just feel like I&#8217;m representing the guys who came before me and I&#8217;ve looked up to them so much. And to be peers with some of the guys I&#8217;m still playing with when I came into the league and they&#8217;re still climbing up the ladder, they&#8217;re motivating me, and I think that&#8217;s what this league is about. There&#8217;s a lot of greatness that kind of rubs off on you and you want to stay in the game. You want to stay around it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>With a message that inspires images of stars like Los Angeles Lakers forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jamesle01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LeBron James<\/a>, Phoenix Suns forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/duranke01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kevin Durant<\/a>, Sacramento Kings wing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/derozde01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">DeMar DeRozan<\/a> and others, it makes one wonder just how long Irving will stick around. He&#8217;s as in love with the game of basketball and as <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/03\/18\/nba-damian-lillard-kyrie-irving-most-skilled-ever-game-winner\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">dedicated to his craft<\/a> as anyone. Due to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/05\/19\/kyrie-irving-opens-up-struggles-led-mavs\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">games he&#8217;s missed<\/a>, he might even want to make up for lost time, so to speak.<\/p>\n<p>All that can be sure is that he&#8217;s appreciative of <em>this<\/em> moment and the people that have helped him along the way.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When you get a chance to still play and do it at a high level and you&#8217;re reaching marks of some of the greatest to ever do it, it&#8217;s something special,&#8221; Irving says. &#8220;So, I don&#8217;t take it for granted at all.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Dallas Mavericks were unable to complete their comeback against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday night, falling 115-114 in a hard-fought battle. However, eight-time All-Star selection Kyrie Irving was amazing, finishing the game with 36 points and 9 assists on .571-.364-.1000 shooting splits. As a result, he was able to leave with something, to quote [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":119716,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,1608,21,62,3],"tags":[406],"class_list":["post-119712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mavericks","category-basketball","category-timberwolves","category-nba","category-news","tag-kyrie-irving"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119712"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119719,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119712\/revisions\/119719"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}