Why tiago splitter is not playing

Less than a month after undergoing season-ending surgery on his right hip, Tiago Splitter is riding an exercise bicycle and walking with the aid of just one crutch. However, his rehabilitation program is well under way.

The surgery was performed by Dr. A timeline for his recovery will be announced when determined. Tiago Splitter underwent successful surgery on his right hip on Thursday. Tiago Splitter: Hello, my friends! Unfortunately, I will perform surgery on my right hip and will be approximately 8 months out.

I never resigned myself to be off the court for any reason. I always loved to play, either for my team or the Brazilian national team. But these pains increased and become increasingly unbearable. I did all the treatments and therapies available, however nothing solved the pain I felt, and it only increased with every single game.

During this time, I had the Hawks medical team and phisios always helping me, but we had to make this difficult decision, that involves more than this season or the Olympics dream in my country, but it reaches my personal health and my career. No one feels more than myself! It was the hardest decision of my career and even more for someone like me who never had any injury to take me to the operating room.

My surgery will be held in New York on February 25th. I want to thank all the messages of support I have received! All the best, Tiago Splitter. Chris Vivlamore: Tiago Splitter pre surgery at Hawks practice. Chris Vivlamore: Hawks announce Splitter news. Say the timing of the procedure is being finalized.

Chris Vivlamore: Tiago Splitter expressed to me his frustration with injury earlier this month. Tiago is trying to cut the passing angle as he recovers. By the time Morris catches the ball, he's far from the arc and well guarded. The Spurs use very conservative pick-and-roll schemes that are aimed at making teams beat them with high-difficulty, low-reward mid-range jumpers. And Splitter is exceptionally good at executing these tactics while being able to contest ball-handlers on drives better than Diaw, and show and recover better than Duncan.

Splitter is averaging career highs in total rebound percentage but that mostly has to do with his offensive rebounding being up. What he keeps doing consistently and wonderfully, however, is boxing out. Tiago doesn't watch the ball and simply try to jump for it. He looks for a guy going for an offensive board and puts a body on him. And that's a huge reason why the Spurs rank first in defensive rebound percentage. Splitter doesn't get to roam much off the ball because he is usually on the other team's best offensive threat or their more perimeter-oriented big while Duncan hangs closer to the rim.

But he still shows fantastic defensive awareness. After dropping on a pick-and-roll and leaving Ibaka open from mid-range, Splitter seems out of the play. Duncan rotates to the open mid-range shooter and leaves Perkins wide open under the rim.

Serge makes the pass but Splitter knows exactly what he has to do and he "helps the helper," rotates over and contests Perkins' shot. On the second play you can see Tiago watching the off-ball action and figuring out OKC was setting staggered screens to get Durant open. And since he happens to be on Perkins, who is not a threat, he leaves him to prevent the open three after Green gets caught in the screens. Tiago is disciplined, fundamentally-sound and smart enough to be a fantastic off-ball defender on top of his on-ball prowess.

Splitter makes almost no highlight plays. He is the most boring elite defensive player this side of Marc Gasol and Andrew Bogut. He doesn't blow up pick-and-rolls 25 feet from the basket on his own or blocks shots into the stands. And because the Spurs have such conservative schemes, you don't see him flying around the court, rotating to patch his teammates' mistakes.

It does not mean that I will have always a guaranteed position over there. But I think and I'm thrilled about the possibility of working with the Spurs in the future," Splitter said. Skip to main content Skip to navigation. Tiago Splitter announces retirement from NBA. Four players ejected after Gobert, Turner tussle. Blazers prez McGowan steps down after 9 years. NBA ups urgency on boosters to players, coaches. Pistons' Olynyk knee to miss at least six weeks.

I played. In those first games, everything happens very quickly on the court. It's out of this world. The players are much bigger, the arms much longer. The timing of a pass, or of a shot. Everything changes. It's really tiring, too, because you're up and down, up and down, the speed of the game is faster. I had to adapt physically. I put on 22lbs of muscle in the NBA. I still remember my first play. It was a moment that defined that joy of being in the NBA, being part of the dream, the greatest league in the world.

That dream had been laid out in front of me when I was Do you know what it's like to be 14 and see the NBA as an actual possibility? For you to understand the circumstances, we've got to go back to where it all began.

At 12, 13, I had that growth spurt. At 14, I was already 6'7", and trained with the adult team in Blumenau. Learning to battle against the older guys made playing against guys my own age really easy. You couldn't even compare it. And a team from Spain, Baskonia, asked me to go over and check out the club, the city of Vitoria-Gasteiz, the country.

I went there with my dad and my mom, trained with the guys. Everything was so different. I'd come from a little town in Santa Catarina [in the South of Brazil] and was in Europe, in a new country, speaking another language. But my parents didn't want that change. Everybody could see my potential, but they wanted to take a look at the alternatives.

When I found out that in Spain it was a ten-year contract with a buyout clause for the NBA, it weighed heavily on my decision. I was 14 and they were already talking about NBA! Apart from that, I was going to get paid from day one, and the contract included yearly trips for my family to come visit. I went. Up until then, everything was easy. Even saying goodbye. Whenever I had to travel it was just, "Buh-bye", then I'd turn around and go my way.

I suffer more if I stay there hugging and talking for three hours. Things got harder when I started training over there. The sessions were tougher than I was used to. My mom lived in Spain with me for the first three months to help me adapt. I remember getting back from practice and asking for a massage because I was in so much pain.

One day, we had to sneak out because I wanted some pain relief rub. I didn't want to tell anyone that I was tired, that everything hurt.

I wasn't going to complain, I didn't want to show them any weaknesses. I wanted them to be happy to have me on the team. I never complained.

Not even in the hardest practices of my life. In my second year in Spain, we had a Serbian coach who would make us get up at 6 a. The whole team would get back, eat and go run shuttles on a soccer field. We'd go to the gym, come back, have lunch, rest a little in the afternoon and then practice basketball. I witnessed people vomit blood, fall on the floor with every muscle in their body cramping.

It was crazy. One day, I cried. Hidden away, of course. I told myself that I'd go back to Brazil. If I had to go through that to become a player, then I wasn't going to become one. But I didn't give up, the other players didn't give up. At the end of that period of training, we realized it wasn't physical. It was mental. That's what they were trying to teach us.

I still talk to all the guys who were on that team. We learned that at the end of a game, when we're too tired, with that monumental pressure bearing down on us, nothing compares with what we went through in those practices. Ultimately, that madness made me thick-skinned, both in my career and in my personal life. That was how I survived losing Michelle and what happened to me in my last years in basketball.

After being the first Brazilian NBA champion, I was the first in the league to play with a prosthetic hip. It was more than 12 months of recovery, a lot of physiotherapy, to be able to come back and play. And it's not like I came back playing spectacularly well. Not at all. I was pretty mediocre. But I was so happy to be back that I didn't care. Things started to go wrong towards the end of my spell with the San Antonio Spurs.

I had problems with my calves. There were two or three tears. When I went to Atlanta, the physiotherapist told me in my first session: "Tiago, your hip isn't moving too well, it's pretty stiff. Ever since I can remember, I've never had much movement. We did the scan, and the doctor came to talk to me.