Utah Jazz notebook: Mehmet Okur 'crushed' at missing postseason play, FIBA World Championships

SALT LAKE CITY — It sounds as if Jazz center Mehmet Okur is having a tough time dealing with the reality of missing the NBA playoffs and not being able to play later this year when the FIBA World Championships are held in his native Turkey.

Okur tore his left Achilles in Game 1 of Utah's first-round playoff series with the Denver Nuggets and underwent surgery to repair the tendon last Tuesday.

"I am crushed that I now can't take part in either," he said on his personal website. "I am trying to keep my spirits high. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don't.

"I am going (through) a tough period in my life right now. I want to be out there playing, because I honestly felt that we (the Jazz) would advance at least to the Western (Conference) finals this season," Okur added. "I was also looking forward to playing in the (world tourney) this summer. It would have been a great honor to play for a medal in my homeland. I was hoping to be a part of a USA-Turkey championship game."

Okur's site also reveals details of the surgery and suggests that a pre-surgery anticipated recovery timetable of four-to-six months seems to still be in order — meaning it's possible he could recover in time for the start of the Jazz's 2010-11 season.

NBA players who have undergone similar surgeries have needed more like eight months before being able to play again.

"The (tendon) was completely ruptured and was reconnected by four stitches, and support was provided by the plantarias tendon, which is a smaller tendon," Okur's personal physician in Turkey, Dr. Mustafa Karahan, is quoted as saying on the site.

It was initially thought Okur would have to keep his lower leg and foot in a hard cast for about four weeks, but according to Karahan, "After such a delicate operation, we knew that aggressive rehabilitation was the most accepted modern post-surgery treatment to a healthy recovery."

Now, however, Okur is expected to begin rehab sometime late this week, and according to Karahan, "absolute movement should be established within two-six weeks later."

Okur received a 10-foot banner from the Jazz that fans inscribed with personal get-well messages.

"Both (wife) Yeliz and I have felt ourselves at home since we have arrived at Salt Lake City six years ago," Okur said. "The people of the city and the state have been great to us."