Nowitzki (ankle) has not participated in practice thus far, Eddie Sefko of The Dallas Morning News reports. According to coach Rick Carlisle, "[Nowitzki] hasn't been on the floor yet. He's doing gradually better. I don't know that there's any reason to talk about anything until next week at the earliest."
"This is weeks, not days, as far as getting on the court for live action," Dallas coach Rick Carlisle said. "He is making gradual progress, but we're not just at a point where we can talk about a hard timeline or anything like that."
The Mavs anticipated after the surgery that Nowitzki would be fully cleared for training camp, but he suffered a setback the week before camp opened, feeling soreness in his Achilles tendon after playing pickup games at the Mavs' practice facility. Nowitzki's on-court work has been limited to light shooting since then.
Nowitzki, who will break an NBA record he shares with Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant by playing his 21st season with one franchise, raised his eyebrows and let out an exasperated sigh Wednesday morning when asked if he thinks it's possible he could be ready to play in Dallas' Oct. 17 opener against the Phoenix Suns.
"It's a matter of going full bore and then feeling good afterwards," Carlisle said. "I would have to think that once we got him feeling significantly better, there wouldn't have to be a lot of full, live workouts to get him into games. But we're down the road a little more age-wise, so things aren't necessarily what they were last year, the year before or whatever.
Nowitzki, the sixth-leading scorer in NBA history, has been remarkably durable for most of his career, but he has missed extended stretches in two of the past five seasons due to injuries. He missed the first 27 games of the 2012-13 campaign after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery during the preseason, and he was out for 24 of the Mavs' first 29 contests in 2016-17 due to Achilles soreness.
