Nowitzki out Monday, still no plans for surgery. Yet.

UPDATE 11:36 pm: Dirk Nowitzki spoke to the media and said no surgery planned. Yet. Here’s the money Dirk quote from Mike Fisher at Dallasbasketball.com:

“I’m doing everything I can not to have surgery,” Nowitzki said, stressing his wish to be “conservative.’' “I guess that’s obvious that I really don’t want it done now. If I want to do it, I would love to do it after the season, get through the season somehow.’'

Does it feel like he is postponing the inevitable to anyone else? I get he did it last year and his knee came around, but this year it feels different. We’ll see, but the Mavs will be in a fight to miss the playoffs in a deep West this season and the longer he is out the smaller their margin for error.

10:39 pm: Dirk Nowitzki didn’t play Monday night. Which during the preseason and him battling sore knee is not really surprising.

But Nowitzki is a guy who has had his knee drained twice since training camp started and is contemplating surgery. Then before the game Mavs coach Rick Carlisle said this (via the Dallas Morning News):

“Dirk’s not playing tonight. He’ll talk to you after the game. Next subject.’’

Yikes.

Carlisle then went through the whole “don’t jump to conclusions” thing but pretty much everyone is jumping there in their heads already. (PBT will bring you what Nowitzki says after the game.)

Pretty soon reporters were asking Carlisle what he would do without Nowitzki for a period of time.

“That’s a question that there’s a lot of different ways we could go with that,’’ he said. “First of all, I’d say let’s not make that assumption necessarily. And there’s a lot of different things we can do. But tonight, it’s premature for that conversation.’’

Is it? Will it still be premature in 24 hours?