Dirk Nowitzki

Dirk Werner Nowitzki (, ; born June 19, 1978) is a German former professional basketball player who is a special advisor for the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Listed at 7ft, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest power forwards of all time and is considered by many to be the greatest European player of all time.

In 2021, he was selected to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.

In 2023, Nowitzki was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Geschwindner let him train seven days a week with DJK Würzburg players and future German internationals Robert Garrett, Marvin Willoughby, and Demond Greene, and in the summer of 1994, then 16-year-old Nowitzki made the DJK squad.

When Nowitzki joined the team, DJK played in Germany's second-tier level league, the Second Bundesliga, South Division.

His first trainer was Pit Stahl, who played the tall teenager as an outside-scoring forward rather than an inside-scoring center to utilise his shooting skills.

In the 1994–95 Second Bundesliga season, ambitious DJK finished as a disappointing sixth of 12 teams; the rookie Nowitzki was often benched and struggled with bad school grades, which forced him to study rather than work on his game.

In the next 1995–96 Second Bundesliga season, Nowitzki established himself as a starter next to Finnish star forward Martti Kuisma and soon became a regular double-digit scorer: after German national basketball coach Dirk Bauermann saw him score 24 points in a DJK game, he stated that "Dirk Nowitzki is the greatest German basketball talent of the last 10, maybe 15 years."

In the 1996–97 Second Bundesliga season, Nowitzki averaged 19.4 points per game and led DJK again to second place after the regular season, but could not help his team gain promotion.

In the following 1997–98 Second Bundesliga season, Nowitzki finished his "Abitur" (German A-levels), but had to do compulsory military service in the Bundeswehr which lasted from September 1, 1997, to June 30, 1998; The 18-year-old, who had grown to 6 ft tall, made progress, leading DJK to a 36:4-point total (in Germany, a victory gives 2:0 points and a loss 0:2) and ending as leading scorer with 28.2 points per game.

In the promotion playoffs, DJK finally broke its hex, finishing at first place with 14:2 points and earning promotion to the next higher league; Nowitzki was voted "German Basketballer of the Year" by the German BASKET magazine.

Abroad, Nowitzki's progress was noticed.

A year later, the teenager participated in the Nike "Hoop Heroes Tour", where he played against NBA stars like Charles Barkley and Scottie Pippen.

In a 30-minute show match, Nowitzki outplayed Barkley and even dunked on him, causing the latter to exclaim: "The boy is a genius. If he wants to enter the NBA, he can call me."

An alumnus of the DJK Würzburg basketball club, Nowitzki was chosen as the ninth pick in the 1998 NBA draft by the Milwaukee Bucks and was immediately traded to the Dallas Mavericks, where he played his entire 21-year National Basketball Association (NBA) career.

On March 29, 1998, Nowitzki was chosen to play in the Nike Hoop Summit, one of the premier talent watches in U.S. men's basketball.

In a match between the U.S. talents and the international talents, Nowitzki scored 33 points on 6-of-12 shooting, 14 rebounds and 3 steals for the internationals and outplayed future US NBA players Rashard Lewis and Al Harrington.

He impressed with a combination of quickness, ball handling, and shooting range, and from that moment a multitude of European and NBA clubs wanted to recruit him.

Projected to be the seventh pick in the 1998 NBA draft, Nowitzki passed up many college offers and went directly into the NBA as a prep-to-pro player.

Nowitzki led the Mavericks to 15 NBA playoff appearances (2001–2012; 2014–2016), including the franchise's first Finals appearance in 2006 and its only NBA championship in 2011.

In international play, Nowitzki led the Germany national team to a bronze medal in the 2002 FIBA World Championship and silver in EuroBasket 2005, and was the leading scorer and MVP in both tournaments.

He is also the first German men's player to have his number retired, receiving this honor in September 2022.

Born in Würzburg, Germany, Dirk Werner Nowitzki comes from an athletic family: his mother Helga Nowitzki (née Bredenbröcker) was a professional basketball player and his father Jörg-Werner was a handball player who represented Germany at the highest international level.

His older sister Silke Nowitzki, a local champion in track and field, also became a basketball player and now works for the NBA in International TV.

Nowitzki was a very tall child; most of the time he stood above his peers by a foot or more.

He initially played handball and tennis.

He managed to become a ranked junior tennis player in the German youth circuit, but soon grew tired of being called a "freak" for his height and eventually turned to basketball.

After joining the local DJK Würzburg, the 15-year-old attracted the attention of former German international basketball player Holger Geschwindner, who spotted his talent immediately and offered to coach him individually two to three times per week.

After getting both the approval of Nowitzki and his parents, Geschwindner put his student through an unorthodox training scheme: he emphasized shooting and passing exercises, and shunned weight training and tactical drills, because he felt it was "unnecessary friction".

Furthermore, Geschwindner encouraged Nowitzki to play a musical instrument and read literature to make him a more complete personality.

After a year, the coach was so impressed with Nowitzki's progress that he advised him, "You must now decide whether you want to play against the best in the world or just stay a local hero in Germany. If you choose the latter, we will stop training immediately, because nobody can prevent that anymore. But if you want to play against the best, we have to train on a daily basis."

After pondering this lifetime decision for two days, Nowitzki agreed to enter the full-time training schedule, choosing the path to his eventual international career.

Known for his scoring ability, versatility, accurate outside shooting, and trademark fadeaway jump shot, Nowitzki won the NBA Most Valuable Player Award in 2007 and the NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award in 2011.

Nowitzki is the only player ever to play for a single NBA franchise for 21 seasons.

He is a 14-time All-Star, a 12-time All-NBA Team member, the first European player to start in an All-Star Game, and the first European player to receive the NBA Most Valuable Player Award.

Nowitzki is the highest-scoring foreign-born player in NBA history.

He is the first Maverick voted onto an All-NBA Team and holds several all-time Mavericks franchise records.

On December 10, 2012, he became the first non-American player to receive the Naismith Legacy Award.

Following his retirement, Nowitzki stood sixth on the NBA all-time scoring list.