Vlatko Cancar’s left knee injury is “not necessarily” season-ending, according to Nuggets coach Michael Malone, but the reserve forward will be out long-term as he and the team weigh possible next steps.
“It could go a couple different ways,” Malone said Thursday. “We’re still gathering information. Letting the knee calm down a little bit. So I don’t want to get doom and gloom. But he’s out for the foreseeable future, and I think he’s got a couple of options we can look at.”
Will those options be whether or not to undergo surgery, or different types of procedures that Cancar can choose between?
“Different options. Not gonna go into all the details,” Malone said, “but some different options will be on the table for Vlatko. And we’ll try to educate him so he can make the best decision.”
Cancar, 27, landed awkwardly after a driving dunk Tuesday night and struggled to put weight on his left leg as he subbed out of the game. He had played 11 minutes in an eventual win over the Grizzlies. Cancar missed the entire 2023-24 NBA season with a torn ACL in the same knee that he injured in Memphis. He was ruled out at halftime with what the Nuggets described as a sprain.
Malone said after the game that Cancar felt relatively little pain at halftime, but the prognosis was less optimistic two days later back in Denver.
“When I think about Vlatko, I think about the line we used to talk about when I was in college: ‘If it wasn’t for bad luck, he’d have no luck,’” Malone said. “That poor kid — every time he gets a chance, he plays well. He does his job. He’s a glue guy. And I just feel so awful for him.”
Malone anticipates a decision on how to proceed with Cancar’s recovery within the next week.
The original ACL tear occurred while Cancar was playing for the Slovenian national team in an exhibition game to prepare for the 2023 FIBA World Cup. He made his first return to game action one year later, also in a Slovenia uniform, at the Olympic Qualifying Tournament this summer. Denver re-signed him to a one-year veteran minimum contract in free agency.
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Cancar was inactive for six games early this season because of a right ankle injury, but he was cleared to play last Friday as the Nuggets tipped off a three-game road trip in New Orleans. Ordinarily, he is not in Malone’s everyday rotation, but with starting center Nikola Jokic out for personal reasons, Cancar played minutes at the backup five in all three games of the trip.
“You look at that game (in Memphis). Sometimes the stat sheet doesn’t tell the whole story,” Malone said. “Vlatko was great. I mean, the ball was moving. (He was) the focal point of that unit out there. Guarding. I love the kid. I feel awful that he suffered another injury.”
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