Samuel Dalembert Has Successful Knee Surgery

Philadelphia 76ers center Samuel Dalembert underwent successful arthroscopic surgery on his left knee on October 25, 2002 at Tenet/Graduate Hospital in Philadelphia. It is estimated that Dalembert will be sidelined 12 weeks before he can return to the practice floor.

“I was very happy with the way the surgery went,” said McPhilemy, who performed the 50-minute procedure. “We found two large chondral defects that appeared to be relatively new injuries, and they were addressed surgically. What we found was very similar to what the MRI indicated. Samuel will begin his rehab program on Monday.”

Dalembert, a 6-foot-10, 250-pounder, played in four games this preseason and was averaging 8.0 points and 4.5 rebounds in 20.0 minutes per game. He is second in the NBA preseason rankings with 2.75 blocks per game, rejecting a total of 11 shots. The native of Haiti missed games at Washington (10/10) and at Toronto (10/13) with left knee effusion and did not travel with the team to Texas for the final two preseason games.

Dalembert left Seton Hall after his sophomore season and was the Sixers first round draft pick (26th overall) of the 2001 NBA Draft. In 2001-02, he played in 34 games, averaging 1.5 points and 2.0 rebounds in 5.2 minutes per game. He missed 28 games due to injury and was a DNP-CD in 20 others.