If you told a 20-year-old Dirk Nowitzki that an NBA team would one day retire his jersey, he would have told you that you’re absolutely out of your mind.
When Nowitzki left Germany in 1998 to join the NBA Draft, never in his wildest dreams did he foresee that he would have a long and fruitful NBA career. He played in the league for 21 years, all of which were spent with the Dallas Mavericks.
“It was a dream career that worked out great for me, that I could stay in one city and be part of this community for such a long time,” Nowitzki told reporters on a global media conference call. “It's a dream come true that many people have come up to me after my career and told me that they respect and appreciate what I've done for the city, for the sport, and for the organization.”
The Mavericks are set to hang Nowitzki’s jersey up on the rafters on Jan. 6 (PHT) with a special ceremony set to take place after their home game against the Golden State Warriors. Nowitzki – an NBA champion, 2007 MVP, 2011 Finals MVP, and 14-time All-Star – is excited to have a night of celebration with the people who have helped him reach his dreams.
“It's going to be overwhelming. I am not super emotional off the court, but at stuff like that, I tend to get a little emotional, like at the street-naming where it took me a couple of minutes to get going there. I'm sure it will be overwhelming,” he said.
After Nowitzki’s retirement two years ago, the City of Dallas honored him by naming a street outside of American Airlines Center “Nowitzki Way”. Soon, a statue will also be built for the Mavericks’ longest-tenured player.
“It's surreal to look at that, to look at my own street, and eventually see the jersey under the roof, and also one day – I'm not sure when – see the statue out front,” said Nowitzki. “It makes me super proud of all the work I put in and how many people have helped me to get to this point.”
Nowitzki’s jersey retirement comes a few months after he was voted to the NBA’s list of 75 greatest players. He was also named an ambassador of the league’s 75th anniversary season, along with fellow NBA legends Clyde Drexler, Magic Johnson, Bob Pettit, and Oscar Robertson.
“I'm very humbled and blessed that people would vote for me on that, and so I was very excited. I was very proud to be on that list with the best who have ever played in our sport and have represented the NBA,” said Nowitzki.
As one of the six international players selected to the 75th team – together with Giannis Antetokounmpo (Greece), Tim Duncan (U.S. Virgin Islands), Steve Nash (Canada), and Hakeem Olajuwon (Nigeria) – Nowitzki is happy to see the influx of foreign-born players in recent years compared to when he first came to the league.
“Just the way basketball has grown so much over the 20 years that I've been in the league and has grown all over the world outside of the U.S., it's been just fun to watch,” said Nowitzki. “Guys coming in and having a huge impact on their teams and on their communities makes me, of course, as an international player, pretty proud of where the league has gone.”
Aside from Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks, there are a number of international stars who currently serve as the face of their respective franchises, including reigning MVP Nikola Jokic (Serbia) of the Denver Nuggets, Joel Embiid (Cameroon) of the Philadelphia 76ers, and of course, Luka Doncic (Slovenia) of the Mavericks. Nowitzki believes Doncic has the highest ceiling among these players, given his plethora of skills at such a young age.
“If you look at Jokic who's got an MVP season already and Giannis has back-to-back MVPs and championships … there is great, great international talent in this league,” he said. “But for me, if we talk upside, I think Luka has the best upside out of those at age 22.”
“He still has so much upside and stuff to learn, and I get to basically see him every other night. His creativity, the way he reads the game, the way he spreads the ball, the way he can score really from the post all the way out to halfcourt, there are no holes in his game. That at 22 is unbelievable,” Nowitzki adds.
As a special advisor to the Mavericks, Nowitzki continues to closely follow his team, which, unfortunately, has been ravaged by health issues this season. Even before the recent COVID-19 surge that caused more than 60 NBA players to simultaneously be placed in the league’s medical protocols, the Mavs have been dealing with repeated absences. Dallas’ top two stars in Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis have been in and out of the lineup due to injuries.
“I just think that right when we try to hit our stride, we haven't really been healthy. I think it showed if one guy of our best two is out, we struggle to compete on both ends. Sometimes we lose games we should win. But if we're all healthy and KP and Luka are both playing, I think we're a very good team,” said Nowitzki.
“Injuries unfortunately are a part of the sport and part of the season. We just have to hold it down if one guy is hurt and hopefully still win some games and stay on track. But our goal has always been, of course, to make the playoffs, and hopefully get home-court advantage in the first round, which will be tough to do in a tough Western Conference.”
Nowitzki has had his fair share of tough battles in the West, particularly against the San Antonio Spurs. He recalled that the Spurs were always the best team in Texas when he entered the league, so they were always the team that the Mavericks had to beat. For him, one of the greatest wins of his career happened in Game 7 of the 2006 Western Conference Finals in San Antonio.
“When I drove and had the and-one to send it to overtime, that's a memory I'll never forget for the rest of my life. Of course, we didn't win the championship that year, which was super frustrating, but that memory of beating the Spurs in Game 7 will always stick with me. That was an amazing, amazing accomplishment,” he said.
After that runner-up finish in 2006, Nowitzki steered the Mavericks to the NBA Finals once more in 2011, and they managed to win it all that season. While he never really thought of changing teams, Nowitzki admitted that had they not won a championship, he might have considered chasing a ring elsewhere.
“The only reason I would have left is maybe if we wouldn't have won a championship, and then at the end of my career, I might have chased it somewhere ... I'm not sure if it would have gotten that far,” he said. “I'm glad, of course, that in 2011 we were able to bring a championship here to Dallas, and I never had to go somewhere else to chase a ring.”
If the likes of Nowitzki or the late Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant – who also stayed in the same franchise for two decades – ended up playing somewhere else, who knows how different the league’s landscape would be right now?
Nowitzki understands the players who move to other teams, knowing that the NBA is a business and players are more empowered now to choose what’s best for their careers and their families. But if you ask Nowitzki, he would not have it any other way. He loved staying in Dallas, whose fans were incredibly loyal to him as much as he was loyal to them.
“I'm more old school. I was strictly focused on basketball, and I wanted to make it work here in Dallas … It was easy for me to stay here and be a Mavericks fan, a Mavericks player for life,” he said. “It worked out perfectly the way everything went, and I'm happy that I was here for 21 years representing a great organization and a great city.”
