This week heaped quite a lot on our collective sports plates.
My single favorite basketball player (and that of many readers, too) has retired in a fashion befitting his accomplishments. I am so impressed and proud of Dirk Nowitzki that words fail me. At the same time, such beautiful things have been written about him that it feels cliche for me to riff about The Big German this morning. I will only offer this: the thing that strikes me most about Dirk is that he is as grounded and normal as an NBA Superstar could possibly be. I have spoken to him annually since he was a rookie and have seen a teenager become a 40-year old during my run in Dallas. He arrived in June of 1998 and I made it here a month later. He came in a trade from Milwaukee and I grew up not far from there. We both were exceptional shooters in our basketball careers. Ok, I will stop.
But one thing that is absolutely true about my basketball hero is that he can use the “nobody believed in me” cliche so many big-time athletes misuse. I am sorry, but I don’t want to hear Kevin Durant or LeBron James tell me nobody believed in them when in fact, everybody did.
Dirk is different. He was often mocked, and mocked by many. That list includes the great Eddie Sefko (who has spent most of his career covering Dirk and has certainly taken his share of grief from this 1998 draft grade :
“Dallas Mavericks: F
The Mavs had an infatuation with Dirk Nowitzki from the start, but they basically gave up the No. 6 pick and an almost-certain lottery pick next season to get Phoenix’s Steve Nash and the German big man. Europeans are such a risky bet, especially in the lottery. So many bust. So few bloom. And Nash is a gamble.”
The Mavs had an infatuation with Dirk Nowitzki from the start, but they basically gave up the No. 6 pick and an almost-certain lottery pick next season to get Phoenix’s Steve Nash and the German big man. Europeans are such a risky bet, especially in the lottery. So many bust. So few bloom. And Nash is a gamble.”
Dirk was then mocked throughout his career for being soft, being European and being white. Remember when Nick Van Exel repeated back what Portland had allegedly claimed about the Mavericks at the time?
“A bunch of soft white boys and can’t get it done. I guess we showed them. We’ve got to step up. White, black, green. It doesn’t matter. This team has a great record with a bunch of white boys.”
Don Nelson joined them during that time:
“What? You mean we have too many white players?” coach Don Nelson said when asked about the smear. “Never heard it. If a guy’s good, he’s good. The European players, the ones who make it, make it.”
Of course, old friend Dwyane Wade took his shots after the 2006 Finals:
“Dirk said that they gave us the championship last year, but he’s the reason they lost the championship because he wasn’t the leader he’s supposed to be in the closing moments.”
Through it all, Nowitzki generally took note of what was being said, took the high road and got back to work. Believe me when I say this, there was a time — a long time during his run — where his own city exhibited massive ranges in opinion about how good he was and whether he was a legitimate superstar.
He didn’t fit the archetype. He didn’t play like the superstars and he sure didn’t talk like them. He wasn’t vacationing with them and he wasn’t in the cool kids club.
He played 21 years and for more than half, we who were loyalists had to defend him repeatedly against critics near and far.
There were times — many of them — where nobody believed in him or his teams.
Everyone’s faith wavered in 2006 when the Finals slipped away to Miami. It wavered in 2007 when the first round brought on a massive humiliation at the hands of the Warriors. It wavered in 2008 when the Hornets quickly dismissed Dallas, and in 2009 when the Nuggets took them apart in five games. The next year, San Antonio put the Mavericks to sleep without mercy.
The fact that they wrote the most marvelous fairy tale on their way to an NBA title in 2011 was unthinkable. Dirk Nowitzki played his best basketball to climb the highest mountain imaginable. In his path laid the scalps of Bryant of the Lakers, Durant, Westbrook, and Harden of the Thunder, and finally James, Wade, and Bosh of the hated Heat as the Mavericks reached the summit.
During that run, Dirk flipped the script on his entire life’s work. He captured the respect and adoration of the basketball world in stunning fashion by winning in a style we had never seen before. Surely, a European big man who shoots from the perimeter and has been widely insulted for his defense couldn’t lead a team of other guys who had spent their careers ringless all the way to the title against the new brand of super teams!
But it happened. All of it.
Since then, he went from being critically-maligned to the first of his kind. A revolutionary evolution of the game’s worldwide footprint. He has since inspired countless kids from around the world who all wish to be the next Dirk. And in doing so, Dirk inspired America’s fickle basketball audience to appreciate a different approach to the same quest of greatness. Superstars no longer resisted crediting or copying him. He became the influencer.
For those of us who clearly remember the mockery, the doubts, the frustration and even the ideas to trade him for someone better, this transformation in two decades seems difficult to comprehend. It is, of course, made even better because all along, all he did was handle every situation with the utmost class, resembling the gentlemanly approach of Roger Staubach: respect, dignity, and the competitive fuel to fight and battle to the very end.
There have been better players in the history of the sport and you can have them. This journey has been special and I will always take my guy. We can squint and look for another, but there is no such thing.
I never imagined growing up that my favorite basketball player of all time would be a man born and raised in Germany.
Yet, here we are.
What a career, what a competitor, and what a model sportsman Dallas can forever claim as its own.
During the 2011 playoff run, the picture which would always pop up on Twitter perfectly grabbed that moment in time for me. I don’t think he ever said the quote in the picture, but it didn’t matter. He made us feel like he did. He played like it and he was amused by the picture when I asked him about it later.
I end this riff with the picture which takes me back to that glorious run in April, May, and June 2011. I will never forget it as long as I live.
That’s my GOAT.
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