Kristaps Porzingis will miss the entire 18-19 season as he recovers from his torn ACL. But Porzingis has fully recovered from his injury and has resumed full basketball activities with the exception of playing in actual games.

"Oh my god, that's the hardest thing for me to wake up on game days, go through shootaround with the team and then have to pick a suit to wear for the game," Porzingis said. "I'm like, 'I don't want to do this anymore.' It's the toughest thing for me. I hate my suits. Not that I hate the suits, but I hate picking them for the game day.

"It's so weird that I'm not able to -- I am able to, but I'm not playing yet. It's the game day, and I feel like it's the game day, but you just pick a suit and you wear it and you're there. And I try to be in the moment when I'm there with the team and help as much as I can without being able to be on the floor, but it's very, very, very tough. Tougher than I expected."

Porzingis agreed a year ago to follow a plan to spend a full year focusing on working on his body and biomechanics to maximize his health.

The Mavs readily accepted the plan after trading for Porzingis.

"I'm really proud of myself for staying this patient with the knee and taking my time. There hasn't been a lot of cases of a 7-(foot-)3 guy tearing his ACL. The good thing about the injury is it was a contact injury. If it was not a contact injury, that would be much more dangerous for me. But it was a contact injury. That means my body mechanics are fine. Now what I've been doing is just getting better with them. I'll keep doing that the whole summer, keep working on my body, keep strengthening my joints, my knees, my ankles, my posture, everything.

"I can feel the progress already, so it excites me even more. It makes me even more eager to be out there on the floor. But I'm going to stick to what I have to stick to, stay patient, and when I'm back, I'm going to be back to 110 percent. At this point, I've matured a lot. I'm like, 'This is the decision I have in my mind, and it's the right decision.' I don't feel the same way every day, but I stick to it."