Dirk Nowitzki continues to slowly recover from his April ankle surgery and could miss the start of the regular season.

Nowitzki has yet to practice with the Dallas Mavericks this preseason.

"This is weeks, not days, as far as getting on the court for live action," 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. Nowitzki aggravated the injury playing pickup games with soreness in his Achilles tendon.