In early April, Dirk Nowitzki underwent a season-ending procedure on his left ankle. It is known as a surgical debridement, which is the “removal of unhealthy tissue from a wound to promote healing.” The team revealed that Dirk had been dealing with an ankle impingement (question mark question mark) all season and playing through it, and shutting him down with a few games left in the season for the surgery would help get him ready to play a record-breaking 21 seasons with the Mavs. At no point in the weeks after the surgery, or at all during the summer, was it suggested that the ankle problem or surgery would prevent him from being ready to play in 2018-19. If you asked anyone, the procedure would have been deemed relatively minor, as far as surgeries go.
And yet, here we are, in early November, and Dirk is still “weeks” away from playing, according to him, which is also what he said a few weeks ago. Coach Rick Carlisle basically doesn’t expect to see him on the court this month, blowing this orthopedic surgeon’s guesstimate.
Now that we are getting deeper into a Mavs season that started with joy but has taken a definite turn toward the desultory, let’s steer all the way in and ask: will Dirk play at all this season?
He’s 40 and already ran like someone woke him up from a dead sleep by banging on his door and he was gingerly jogging to see who was there. I love him like family but it was like he was wearing Nike Die Hards with insoles made out of broken glass. He ran like he was playing barefoot in a house with two unruly toddlers who left their Lego pieces all over. What I’m saying was he already couldn’t run very well, at least recently, and he’s still not even practicing or running and it is November 5.
Even if he started practicing today — he’s not going to, but let’s just say that — he probably couldn’t be ready to play in an actual game until like maybe Thanksgiving. And even then what kind of shape would he be in?
I have three scenarios, none of which are great, but have to be considered at this point.
- Dirk isn’t coming back until Christmas. I feel like this is most likely. That would give him somewhere around 50 games left. He probably wouldn’t play in all of them. But that would still give him more than enough run to top Wilt Chamberlain’s 31,419 career points and move into the No. 6 spot all-time. (LeBron James will pass Wilt first, and has already jumped ahead of Dirk this season.) I hope this is what happens.
- Dirk plays one more game. A farewell game, probably the last home game of the season. It is announced a few weeks in advance, he starts, knocks down his first few shots, everyone goes nuts, happy ending.
- Dirk never plays again. He gives it a go in practice for a few weeks, and makes his decision. It is announced during the All-Star break. I hope this doesn’t happen.
Who else is super bummed right now?
