Tony Parker to Make Season Debut vs. Mavericks After Quadriceps Injury

San Antonio Spurs point guard Tony Parker said Sunday he would be making his season debut Monday night against the Dallas Mavericks.   

Parker, 35, has missed the team's first 19 games while recovering from a torn quadriceps tendon in his left leg suffered during the second round of the 2017 postseason against the Houston Rockets.

Parker isn't the only Spurs player to be dealing with quadriceps issues, as superstar Kawhi Leonard is recovering from quadriceps tendinopathy. Head coach Gregg Popovich said he had never seen a quad injury like Parker's or Leonard's.

"What's really strange is that Tony has the same injury, but even worse," Popovich said on Nov. 23, per Michael C. Wright of ESPN.com. "They had to go operate on his quad tendon and put it back together or whatever they did to it. So to have two guys, that's pretty incredible. I had never seen it before those guys."

That left the Spurs without two of their key players to start the 2017-18 season. Parker averaged 10.1 points and 4.5 assists in 25.2 minutes per game last season, whereas Leonard was an MVP finalist after averaging 25.5 PPG and 5.8 RPG while cementing himself as arguably the best two-way player in the NBA.

In Parker's absence, Patty Mills (8.6 PPG, 3.5 APG) and Dejounte Murray (7.6 PPG, 4.8 RPG) handled the point-guard duties. While the Spurs are clearly better with Leonard and Parker available to play, the team still opened the season with a 12-7 record.