Dirk Nowitzki undergoes a surgery on right knee; Out for six weeks at least – NBA Update
After a tipsy-turvy off season, the Dallas Mavericks have suffered another blow.
And this is a major one.
Dirk Nowitzki, the face of the franchise, has undergone an arthroscopic surgery on his right knee and is now expected to miss at least 6 weeks of action.
"We've got to really buckle down," A visibly perturbed Rick Carlisle said while talking about the surgery. "Six weeks is a long time. A week and a half of it is non-season time, so that's a bit of a plus, but NBA games are hard
and we're going to have to have everybody ready to play. Simple as that."
Nowitzki has been having problem with the right knee since last season. He experienced discomfort last summer, but after taking a conditioning break at the start of the compressed season, he carried on without any problems. Nowitzki’s
numbers however fell down significantly, and to make the matters worse the pain returned this off season. The issue forced the German giant to miss the last three pre season games for the Mavs and get his knee drained two times. However, swelling returned
quickly every time and the Mavericks medical staff were left with no choice but to operate to find the cause of swelling.
Nowitzki’s surgery will be a major blow to the season hopes of the 2010-11 NBA champions. With eight new players in the team, the Mavericks needed to form some sort of chemistry early, but with the departure of Nowitzki that has
pretty much gone out of the equation.
The situation doesn’t help either when you consider that Dirk is the only superstar left in the lineup;
"It's never going to be easy to lose a game-changer for six weeks," Carlisle said. "We know that, but we're going to have to make up for it in other areas. We're going to have to play with grit and guts, and we're going to have
to raise our level of efficiency in all areas."
The Mavericks start their campaign with a game against the Los Angeles Lakers on Oct 30 and if it takes the 14 year veteran exactly six months to recover, they are going to play 13 games without him.
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