Danilo Gallinari injury: Nuggets forward could miss entire 2013-14 season

The Nuggets were hopeful he could return as early as January after the injury occurred but had not put an official timetable on his recovery. Gallinari recently told Italian media outlet La Gazzetta dello Sport he was considering shutting down the season as he continues to recover from the grueling injury.

Gallinari underwent surgery to repair his meniscus following the injury which was expected to push back his ACL surgery. He never underwent a procedure to repair his ACL, according to Wojnarowski. Instead, Gallinari’s doctor was hopeful he could strengthen the partially torn ligament and return without surgery.

Emiliano Carchia of Sportando translated part of the interview, revealing Gallinari said one of the biggest parts of his rehab now is dealing with the mental aspect. The Nuggets forward hasn’t set a target date for his return and said the idea of sitting out the entire season is something that has crossed his mind.

Gallinari injured his left knee last April, and it was initially diagnosed as a torn ACL and torn meniscus. But when he went under the knife to repair the ACL, only a partial tear was discovered.

The 6’10 Italian predicted at the start of training camp that he’d return by next week, but that timetable is out the door.

The Denver Post reports that any talks of Gallinari is still planning to return this season. Gallinari also said in the interview that he is not frustrated with how long the rehabilitation process is taking:

Gallinari suffered the injury in early April, and it was initially diagnosed as a torn ACL and torn meniscus. The 25-year-old underwent surgery to repair the meniscus later in the month, but waited to fix the ACL.

In mid-June, Gallinari went under the knife again, only for the surgery to reveal that he only had a partially torn ACL. The forward underwent a special “healing response” treatment, and he said at the time he expected the recovery time to be much different than a normal ACL injury.

In the video, Gallinari said that his recovery time will be “completely different.” Gallinari didn’t specify exactly what the new timeline for his recovery would be, instead saying, “I’ll inform you later about that,” but a changed timeline would be consistent with the league source who told the Post that the wingman could return in December.

Gallinari was injured on April 4 with what was initially diagnosed as a torn ACL and torn meniscus in his left knee. The normal recovery time for a torn ACL is around nine months; Gallinari had surgery to repair the meniscus in late April and underwent a procedure this week that had been intended to repair the ACL.

Gallinari tore his ACL and his meniscus on April 4 and had surgery to repair the meniscus a month ago, but the operation to repair the ACL has been put on hold. It normally takes at least six months to recover from a torn ACL and can take as long as nine months, so if Gallinari is not going to have the second operation for at least two more weeks, a Jan. 1 return seems unlikely.

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