Dirk Nowitzki Means Everything

Dirk Nowitzki pulls his jersey over his eyes as television cameras broadcast his short trip back to Miami's visiting locker room. There was a reason he had run off the court as soon as the final buzzer sounded, a reason he had hurdled the scorer's table and fled the court even as the Mavericks achieved the everlasting validation of a championship.

It's June 12, 2011, and he isn't going to let anyone see him cry.

He does it in the locker room instead, where the television cameras couldn't follow, while his teammates are still celebrating on the court. Only when his eyes dry minutes later is a team official able to coax him back onto the floor to accept his NBA Finals MVP and to cradle the Larry O'Brien trophy, moments he had wondered if he would ever experience. "I still really can't believe it," Nowitzki says when a microphone is put in front of him. "We worked so hard and so long for it. The team has been unbelievable, riding through ups and downs and always staying together and working. I still can't even believe it."

Left unsaid — both in this answer and in many more of his words that followed that evening — was his own role in making this unbelievable accomplishment a reality. But Nowitzki has never been one to talk about himself, so we'll have to do it for him. He brought Dallas a championship. Narrowing his impact to just that, though, is superficial and trite. The truth is Dirk Nowitzki means so much more than that.

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It's June 24, 1998, and the Mavericks are calling Dirk Nowitzki to welcome him to the team. They don't know that the decision will make this the most important day in the team's history. Nowitzki changed the Mavericks as a franchise — and Dallas as a city. With him, he brought so many moments worth remembering. They came in the form of trophies and awards ceremonies and by way of unforgettable shots and cherished games. They triggered celebration, induced pride, produced tears, and brought joy. Sometimes, they came quickly — many memories blending together hours, days, and weeks at a time — and sometimes, they slowed down, giving enough time to hold on and cherish them.

But none could have happened before that day in June. In the year 2022 or 2023, or maybe even 2024 or 2025, Nowitzki will be elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. It'll happen unanimously, and on the first eligible ballot, because Nowitzki's championship, MVP, 13 All-Star appearances, and 12 selections to an All-NBA team speak for themselves. It'll be entirely deserved because he's only the sixth player to ever score 30,000 points in his career and the greatest European basketball player ever. It'll be celebrated in the Dallas streets because Nowitzki leads the Mavericks franchise in games played, points, rebounds, and wins and is unquestionably the greatest player in the team's history.

Nowitzki's statistics are prodigious, and his accomplishments could stretch on for an entire book. An ever truer testament to the player he is, however, is his influence. Nowitzki wasn't the first big man to shoot three-pointers or dribble the ball on fast breaks, but he quickly became the best. He played like a guard in a seven-footer's body, and that itself changed basketball.

You see Dirk Nowitzki everywhere you look in the NBA today. Centers shoot threes, and power forwards run fast breaks, and some seven-footers never even need to step into the paint. There are direct tributes, when big men and guards alike shoot Nowitzki's patented fadeaway off of one leg. Nowitzki isn't the only reason for the league growing in this direction, but him joining the league at the turn of the century legitimized a trend and sped it along even faster.

Nowitzki deserves credit for the rising popularity of basketball internationally, too. It wasn't just him, of course. Other foreign-born superstars like Hakeem Olajuwon and Pau Gasol had equally strong influences. Commissioner David Stern also played an enormous role in the globalization of his league in the 1990s and 2000s. But basketball continues to morph into a world phenomenon,...