“The conditioning is not quite there where I want it, so we’ll be working on it in the next couple of days,” Nowitzki said in an exclusive interview with Mavs.com. “We didn’t really set a date (for his first game of the season), but it’s definitely not (Saturday).”
Nowitzki hasn’t fully recovered after having surgery on his left ankle on Apr. 5. The surgery not only cost the 21-year veteran the final four games of last season, but it prevented him from playing in the four preseason games and the first 23 games of this season.
Lately, Nowitzki has been relegated to going through some of the team’s non-contact practice sessions.