NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — Six-time NBA All-Star guard Kyrie Irving suffered a facial fracture when he took an elbow during workouts, the Brooklyn Nets said Wednesday.
Irving, who won an NBA title alongside LeBron James with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016, is expected to lead a young Nets club after making the jump from the Boston Celtics as a free agent, signing a four-year, $141 million deal.
General manager Sean Marks, a New Zealander, had downplayed the severity of the injury when he spoke to reporters on Tuesday, saying the player had been sent to the hospital for evaluation because “Kyrie gets checked out like everybody else”.
The team announced the diagnosis on Wednesday in a statement posted on their Twitter feed.
Irving has dealt with facial fractures before. He had to play wearing a plastic facemask for a few weeks after he took an inadvertent hit from then-Celtics teammate Aron Baynes of Australia in November of 2017.
The Nets have a media availability scheduled for Friday before they open training camp at the weekend.
© Agence France-Presse
