[10] After completing his college career, Irving's father moved to Australia to play professionally for the Bulleen Boomers in the South East Australian Basketball League (SEABL).

[25][26] In his first season, Irving averaged 17.0 points, 5.0 rebounds, 6.0 assists, and 2.0 steals per game, and led the team to its third New Jersey Tournament of Champions title in four years.

[42] While practicing with the Cavaliers in the NBA Summer League on July 14, 2012, Irving sustained a broken right hand after reportedly slapping it against a padded wall after committing a turnover.

[60] The next game against Dallas two days later, was a season low for Irving, who scored just six points before leaving in the third quarter with lower back tightness; the Cavaliers lost 109–90.

[63] On March 12, 2015, Irving scored a career-high 57 points, including a buzzer-beating three-point shot to send the Cavaliers into overtime, in a 128–125 victory over the San Antonio Spurs.

[69] After leaving Game 1 of the NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors in the overtime period with a knee injury, Irving was ruled out for the rest of the series the following day with a fractured left kneecap that required surgery,[70] sidelining him for three to four months.

On August 27, 2015, Irving was ruled unlikely to be ready for opening night of the 2015–16 season due to the left kneecap fracture he suffered in Game 1 of the 2015 NBA Finals.

[78] The Cavaliers went on to breeze through the Eastern Conference playoffs with a 12–2 record to reach the 2016 NBA Finals, where they faced Golden State for the second straight year.

[92] With 24 points in Game 5 of the series, he helped the Cavaliers defeat the Celtics 135–102 to claim their third straight Eastern Conference title and a return trip to the NBA Finals.

[93] After going down 3–0 in the 2017 NBA Finals, Irving scored 40 points in Game 4 to help Cleveland extend the series and avoid a sweep with a 137–116 victory over the Golden State Warriors.

In July 2017, Irving requested the Cavaliers to trade him, reportedly wanting to be more of the focal point of his own team instead of continuing to play alongside LeBron James.

[95][96] The following month, on August 22, he was traded to the Boston Celtics in exchange for Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder, Ante Žižić, and the rights to the Brooklyn Nets' 2018 first-round draft pick (that ultimately turned into Collin Sexton).

[97] Eight days later, the Celtics agreed to send the Cavaliers a 2020 second-round draft pick via the Miami Heat to complete the trade, as compensation for Thomas' failed physical.

[101] On November 20, 2017, Irving scored 10 of his season-high 47 points in overtime as the Celtics rallied from a double-digit deficit to beat the Dallas Mavericks 110–102, extending their winning streak to 16 games.

[107] Less than two weeks later, Irving was ruled out for the entire postseason, with a recovery time of four to five months,[108] after another procedure was scheduled to remove two screws from his patella that were inserted in 2015 to repair a fracture he suffered during that year's NBA Finals.

[126] Irving became the seventh player in franchise history to score 50 points or more in a single game, and joins Stephon Marbury (2001) as the only one to also record 15 combined rebounds and assists.

[129] Irving missed 26 games due to a right shoulder injury, and returned on January 12, 2020, scoring 21 points on a 10-of-11 shooting in the 108–86 victory over the Atlanta Hawks.

[132] The next day, the Nets were scheduled to play the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden, but Irving left the arena prior to tip-off upon learning of the death of Kobe Bryant.

[159] A week later, Irving scored 41 of his career-high and Nets franchise-record 60 points in the first half, grabbed six rebounds, delivered four assists along with four steals on 20-of-31 shooting from the field, including eight three-pointers, in a 150–108 victory over the Orlando Magic.

[191][192] Sportswriters declared the season to be a "renaissance",[193] "revival",[194] and "redemption"[195] of Irving's career, with the veteran player having performances and statistics in the highest caliber of the league once again.

With the win, he became just the fourth member of Team USA to capture the NBA championship and an Olympic gold medal in the same year, joining LeBron James, Michael Jordan, and Scottie Pippen.

[205] In 2017, the Uncle Drew advertisement series became a skit inside an old school diner featuring Pepsi in its current design, stored in a fridge with its original logo.

A namesake sneaker was announced for the 2023–2024 NBA season alongside a business collaboration that saw Irving join the company as Chief Creative Officer of Anta Basketball.

[148][149] On September 15, 2022, Irving shared a video on his Instagram story featuring a rant by InfoWars creator and far-right conspiracy theorist[251] Alex Jones.

In the 2002 video, Jones promotes the New World Order conspiracy theory and alleges that state actors are planning to oppress the public by intentionally releasing viruses.

[259][260] In a tweet on October 28, Nets owner Joseph Tsai said he was "disappointed that Kyrie appears to support a film based on a book full of anti-semitic disinformation", and expressed his intent to address the issue further with Irving.

"[263] The same day, during a postgame press availability at Barclays Center, Irving denied having any religious biases and defended the tweet, telling reporters that "[h]istory is not supposed to be hidden from anybody" and stating, "I'm not going to stand down on anything I believe in.

[265] On October 31, during a game between the Nets and the Indiana Pacers at Barclays Center, several attendees sitting courtside wore shirts bearing the phrase "Fight Antisemitism", an apparent reference to Irving's tweet.

[266] Two days later, Irving and the Nets jointly announced they would each donate US$500,000 to organizations combating religious hatred, and would work with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to create programming related to opposing antisemitism.

"[273][274] That night, the Nets announced that they had suspended Irving without pay for at least five games, due to his "failure to disavow antisemitism when given a clear opportunity to do so" and "conduct detrimental to the team.