Dirk Nowitzki’s unique talent and immeasurable impact will be recognized in Springfield.

His shot became his signature, that signature became a statue. It’s planted there now for the long term, emblematic of Dirk Nowitzki himself, who came to the Dallas Mavericks a quarter century ago and never left.

Resplendent in white bronze, 24 feet high, over on the right wing of Victory Plaza outside the American Airlines Center, Nowitzki is immortalized in the shooting form that earned him so many of his 35,223 points (regular and postseason). It earned him a bevy of admirers, too, among peers and rivals like Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant and LeBron James who adopted the big German sharpshooter’s one-legged fadeaway as both a tactic and an homage.

“The Dirk,” as that shot has been dubbed, is here to stay. Both as a weapon – “the equivalent of what Abdul-Jabbar did with his sky hook,” one opposing coach said the other day, both awed and irritated by its effectiveness – and as a tribute, frozen in time, the distillation of 21 seasons and 1,667 games logged with the only NBA team for which he ever played.

One city, one franchise? Only Utah Hall of Famer John Stockton (1,686) ever played more.

It’s funny, though, how a player celebrated for staying planted in one place for more than two decades could have traveled so far and covered such ground in the process. It showed in his game, the way he developed, refined and tweaked his unique style until he had dragged the whole position with him.

“Watching him play, I remember thinking, he’s just getting better and better and better,” said Hall of Famer Kevin McHale, one of the NBA’s greatest power forwards. “And he really changed things around the way the position is played.”

It showed in Nowitzki’s influence, a European prospect who came over younger than most of the imports who preceded him and shined so brightly that, well before he was done, he was regarded as the best player ever from that continent. Fifty-one Most Valuable Player trophies had been handed out in NBA history before Nowitzki won the 52nd as the first Euro. Now guys from Greece and Serbia have taken home four of the past five.

“Every tall kid around the world saw Dirk,” Mavs owner Mark Cuban said, “and realized they could play basketball and not have to be a back-to-the-basket center. Dirk paved the way for players of any size to be multi-positional and have a variety of in-game skills.”

Certainly Nowitzki, 45, moved geographically in a career that spanned half his life, from Wurzburg, Germany, to Dallas and now to Springfield, Mass., where he will be inducted Aug. 12 into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame with the Class of 2023. He has been there once before, in 2018 when a pair of his point guards – Steve Nash and Jason Kidd – were both enshrined. This time, those two will be official Hall presenters for their tall teammate. Nowitzki’s guest list for the weekend – after wife Jessica and their kids Malaika (10), Max (8) and Morris (6) – ran “a couple hundred, I think” at least in invitees, if not attendees.

His speech is pretty much done. “It’s been fun,” Nowitzki told NBA.com recently by phone from Germany. “Really what you’re doing, you’re reflecting on the whole journey. Who’s meant the most, who’s done what. I’ve actually found it cool to sit down in the evening after everyone’s in bed and I sit here for an hour and think about that stuff.

“There will be a little nervousness. But I’m also going to enjoy standing up there and looking out at this amazing crowd of family and friends and great athletes. I’m going to try to enjoy it as much as I can.”

From Germany To Dallas

His father, Jörg-Werner, competed internationally in team handball. His mother Helga and his older sister Silke played basketball.

“Growing up I was always in gyms,” said Nowitzki, who mostly played handball and tennis. “I was tall, and I played basketball in school. I had a cousin who was with a club team, so I went one time to practice and I got hooked. I wasn’t very good but I could move pretty well for a big guy and I had decent touch for my size. It didn’t come that hard for me, and I loved it from Day 1.”

After joining DJK Wurzburg, Nowitzki was spotted by Holger Gerschwindner, a former national team player turned physicist, trainer and coach. Gerschwindner offered to work with the lanky lad, got the family’s permission, then began to hone every aspect of Nowitzki’s game.

One part guru, one part Svengali to Nowitzki’s Trilby, Gerschwindner favored unorthodox techniques and drills to coax out his players’ abilities. For instance, he would invite an old friend who played the saxophone to the gym, then instruct Nowitzki and other teen players to dribble and move in rhythm with the music (“dance the game,” he termed it). He gave them books and swapped out weight training with morning rowing on a local lake.

“Holger was a little bit mystical figure in Dirk’s orbit who thought completely out of the box,” said Golden State assistant coach Ron Adams, an international scout for Portland in 1998. “He’s a little full of himself and some people look sideways at him, but they let Holger do his thing for the most part in Dallas.”

At 19, Nowitzki had developed enough to be invited to the Nike Hoop Summit, an All-Star event pitting the top international prospects against a squad of U.S. high schoolers. The game was held in San Antonio, but the foreign players convened and practiced in Dallas.

Donnie Nelson, son of Mavericks coach Don Nelson, served as a volunteer assistant coach for the overseas team. A stint with Athletes in Action playing internationally during his time at Wheaton College piqued the younger Nelson’s interest in the NBA potential of foreign-bred players.

“We scouted Europe more than anybody, really,” Don Nelson told NBA.com last week, calling from his home in Maui. “Donnie got the international team to work out at the YMCA in downtown Dallas. So for a full week, I’m watching Dirk work out. He was the most unbelievable young player I’d ever seen.”

Other teams perked up after Nowitzki scored 33 points with 14 rebounds to spark his team’s upset of the Americans, including Al Harrington, Quentin Richardson and Rashard Lewis. But as the 1998 NBA Draft approached, the Nelsons were ready.

“We hid Dirk for several weeks before the draft,” Nelson said. “We made a commitment that we were going to draft him. We just wanted to keep him from going anywhere else to work out. He was going to be ours. He was happy with that. So he hid for a week in Donnie’s basement.”

The Mavericks held the No. 6 pick that year but had more ambitious plans than simply taking Nowitzki at that spot. They arranged a deal with Milwaukee at No. 9, in which Dallas picked Michigan’s Robert (Tractor) Traylor and the Bucks took Nowitzki. They knew Boston had interest, leaving the Celtics to draft Paul Pierce at No. 10.

The Bucks also sent the No. 19 selection, Pat Garrity, to Dallas, which promptly packaged Garrity to Phoenix for a young point guard named Steve Nash.

The Early Years

The 1998-99 NBA season is one that lots of folks would like to forget. First of all, there was no 1998; a labor lockout wiped out training camps and the season’s first two-plus months. The new CBA that was wrangled in January was followed by a frenzied 50-game schedule that began in February. Summer leagues, orientation, September individual work and scrimmages, everything an incoming rookie needs for that first difficult season was off the table.

Then there was Nowitzki, who had just turned 20 and, by his and Gerschwindner’s admission, was probably one or two years ahead of schedule in trying the NBA.

“It was right after they drafted me,” Nowitzki said, “that I had the doubts. Should I go to the NBA? I was skinny, I had played second division in Germany. Can I make this jump?

“I talked to Nellie and Donnie. I got to meet Steve and Mike [Finley], and they all assured me, being a young team, we could grow together. So before I left from home, I said I’d come. But I wasn’t able to sign a contract because of the lockout, and that worked out kind of perfect for me.

“I got to stay home. I got to train with Holger. I got to play first division in Germany for a couple more months and really developed my body a little more, my game. Then I got the call in late January from Donnie. ‘Hey, the season is on. Get your butt to Dallas!'”

Let the record show, in his NBA debut on Feb. 5, 1999, Nowitzki shot 0-for-5, made two free throws, got no rebounds and passed for four assists in 16:20 of an overtime loss to Seattle. That first season, he averaged 8.2 points and 3.4 rebounds while shooting 40.5% overall and 20.6% on 3s. The Mavericks finished 19-31 but the Nelsons made good on their commitment, using Nowitzki in 47 games and starting him in 24, including the final 14 when his minutes doubled to 32.9 per game.

“Super nervous and anxious,” he recalled. “I didn’t know what to expect. We had a week of training camp maybe. I didn’t know all the plays or the defensive calls. Then we had five or six games in a week? It was insane. Looking back, it was good for me to get adjusted and learning. But it was tough to go through.”

There was one bright side: Nash. The unheralded playmaker from British Columbia by way of Santa Clara had been buried in the Suns backcourt his first two seasons. He and the German rookie clicked instantly.

“Well, they both loved to drink beer, so I’d say they clicked,” Nelson said, laughing. “They hung out. They both were single at the time.”

It was a lot more than that, Nowitzki said.

“We came to Dallas on the same day,” he said. “We didn’t have any friends. We lived in the same apartment complex. His family is from Europe, and he loved soccer. So we had that and we completely bonded. We went to dinners. I was feeling homesick so he’d take me to movies, out to eat.

“On free nights, we’d go back to the gym, train, lift, run, shoot, play 1-on-1. We just worked our way to be better and better every year. Steve knew the league, the routines and how to get ready. So I learned a lot from him.”

Dirk Nowitzki and Steve Nash pose with Don Nelson at their introductory press conference in 1998.

In his second season, during which Cuban bought the franchise, Nowitzki doubled his output to 17.5 points and 6.5 boards while shooting 46.1% overall and 37.9% from range. He averaged 21.8 in 2000-01 as he and Nash became a devastating pick-and-pop combo, and the Mavericks won 53 games in the first of 11 consecutive years of 50-plus victories. The next season, the guard and the forward were All-Stars.

“The crazy part still is, when he got to the NBA, people were upset that he didn’t play like a traditional center,” Cuban said. “They asked why he wasn’t a rim protector. It’s insane to look back at that now.”

Nash went back to Phoenix in free agency in 2004. Finley was gone a year later. Jason Terry came in, and later Kidd. Their coaches changed, from Nelson to Avery Johnson to Rick Carlisle. But Nowitzki was the cornerstone and he was on a roll. He went to 11 All-Star games in a row and 14 overall. He was a 12-time All-NBA selection. In 2006 he led Dallas to the Finals for the first time. The next season, the Mavs won 67 games and Nowitzki won his MVP award.

The coaching changes, never easy, panned out for him. Nelson tapped into Nowitzki’s rare combo of size and ball skills, using him as a lengthy small forward. He was 26 when Johnson took over, demanding more toughness, post work and even defense from his offensive star. Carlisle, who coached him from 2008 until Nowitzki retired in 2019, was a combination, wanting “a lot of free-flow offense and a lot of structured, detail-oriented defense.”

“I always thought, what if I had gone someplace else? Bulked me up and just put me under the basket and made a center out of me. With Nellie, that never happened,” Nowitzki said.

Johnson perfected Dallas’ use of Nowitzki at the “nail,” the center of the free-throw line where he posed the maximum threat to opposing defenses. It enabled him to punish smaller defenders that would switch onto him, without the time and grind to work into the low post, and likely draw a doubling big man.

“The spacing was good,” he said. “I wasn’t the greatest passer, but at least this way, I knew where my spot-up shooters were. I knew the big guy was in the dunker spot underneath. And if nobody came to double, I was going to just shoot over the little guy.”

As for Carlisle, that partnership produced the highlight of their careers and Cuban’s tenure, Maverick fans’ warmest memories, one of the city’s happiest sports celebrations and a reason so many junior-high kids named Dirk are running around.

“I came in the fall of 2008,” Carlisle said last week, “and the main thing was, ‘Dirk’s got about 4-5 years in his prime. We’ve got to figure out a way to win a championship.’”

‘Now I’m The Old Guy’

Nowitzki was 14 years old when Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and the rest of the Dream Team colonized the basketball world during the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.

“I was already an NBA fan and with Jordan winning his first championship in 1991, I became a huge Bulls fan,” Nowitzki said. “Then obviously ’92 happened. I had posters in my room of [Charles] Barkley, Shaq later on, Jordan of course, Bird.”

He had a poster, too, of Detlef Schrempf, the native of Leverkusen, Germany who was drafted eighth overall in 1985 by an earlier Dallas regime. Schrempf, a 6-foot-10 forward, grew up in Centralia, Wash., and spent four years at the University of Washington. He played 16 seasons, averaging 13.9 points, 6.2 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game. Later playing for Indiana, Seattle and Portland, Schrempf made three All-Star teams, one All-NBA squad and twice was named the NBA’s top Sixth Man.

Of the 27 NBA players born in Germany, Schrempf is the closest precursor to Nowitzki.

“Of course, Detlef was also one of my favorites. Everybody in Germany knew how good he was,” Nowitzki said. “And then my first game in the league, it was against Seattle and Detlef. The way he treated me there, introduced me to his family, he couldn’t have been nicer. He gave me his phone number and told me to call if I ever had any questions.”

Other notable European players have made their marks before or since. Players such as Sarunas Marciulionis, Drazen Petrovic, Vlade Divac, Andre Kirilenko, Rik Smits, Toni Kukoc and Tony Parker right on to Domantas Sabonis, Luka Doncic and Nikola Jokic.

Now Nowitzki is their flag bearer, a role that makes him almost as proud as when he carried Germany’s flag in the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

“I got to play with [Mavs forward] Maxi Kleber my last two years. How special is that, a kid from my hometown comes to us? We spent a lot of time together, before the season we trained together and he had a lot of questions,” Nowitzki said.

“And [Toronto guard] Dennis Schröder, when he got in the league, he actually worked out in Dallas before the Draft. I went there, got to see him, got to meet him and gave him my number. Told him when he had any questions to call me up. So we’ve basically been in contact his entire career.

“Now I’m the old guy. It changes so fast. Twenty years have flown by.”

Dirk Stays With Dallas, Wins 2011 Title

Dirk Nowitzki and the Mavericks celebrate winning the NBA championship in 2011.

This bond of Nowitzki with Dallas, Dallas with Nowitzki, is something to savor now, full of giddy moments and fuzzy nostalgia. But it was forged in hard times, ordeals that are only appreciated in retrospect and even then with a wince. The early days with the Mavericks had been a challenge for Nowitzki, but nowhere close to what he and the team’s fan base endured a few years later.

In 2005-2006, Dallas won 60 games. Nowitzki averaged a career-best 26.6 points, finished third in MVP balloting and – with teammates such as Terry, Josh Howard and Jerry Stackhouse – once again was the lone All-Star.

“Dirk played with Jason Kidd near the end of his career and Jason was still a great player, but he did not play with a bunch of Hall of Fame players in their prime,” Carlisle said. “Nash left before he really hit his stride. Dirk carried an amazing load with the Dallas Mavericks over a period of two-plus decades that may never be rivaled again.”

Nowitzki was his usual stellar self in leading the Mavs in the 2006 playoffs to series victories over Memphis, San Antonio and Phoenix, with his Game 7 work to beat the Spurs overtime in the West semis most remarkable. He and the Mavericks took a 2-0 lead over Miami in the Finals. Then Dwyane Wade happened, the young Heat star binging at 39.3 points and shooting 73 free throws over the final four games.

The Mavericks regrouped to win 67 games in 2006-07. They were so good, with Nowitzki as MVP, they dragged Howard to his only All-Star selection. Heavily favored against small-ball, eighth-seeded Golden State, Dallas was upset in six games, including defeats by 12, 18 and 25 points. Their old mastermind Nelson was working the Warriors’ sideline at that point, and his insider defense on Nowitzki saw the Mavs star score just eight points on 2-of-13 shooting in the elimination game.

“It would have been unbelievable to win in ’06,” he said. “And then losing in the first round in ’07 to the Warriors, those were some tough, tough losses. Gut-wrenching, to the point where I was embarrassed and disappointed and didn’t want to leave the house for a couple weeks.”

In fact, the only thing that blocked him from a hasty retreat to Germany that spring was the NBA, asking him to stick stateside for a couple of weeks until the MVP presentation.

Another first-round loss in 2008, to New Orleans this time, cost Johnson his job. Carlisle came in but two more abrupt exits followed, to Denver in the 2009 semis and to San Antonio in 2010.

Nowitzki was 32 and, for the first time in his career, a free agent. Three years earlier, a perennial All-NBA forward had accepted a trade in hopes of winning a championship elsewhere: Kevin Garnett left Minnesota after 12 years and insufficient help to finally win in Boston. Was Nowitzki next?

“I always wanted to make it happen,” Nowitzki said. “I met with Mark [Cuban] and we both got a little emotional about what we’d been through together. And he said, ‘Let’s finish this together,’ and I was like, ‘I don’t want to be anywhere else.’ I ended up signing a four-year deal and we won a championship in the first year.”

The 2010-11 Mavericks did more than that. They delayed and possibly altered the trajectory of LeBron James’ grandiose Super Team plans in Miami. The “not one, not two, not three…” hubris of that initial public appearance of James, Wade and Chris Bosh became the thud of “not one” when Dallas and Nowitzki beat the Heat in six games.

Said McHale: “Kidd was really, really smart. Just knew how to play. Some of the guys were older, too. They had a blend of guys who just played so well together. They would do this 2-3 zone when I was [visiting Carlisle] in camp and I told Rick, ‘Your zone sucks. You’ve got to stop using that.’ Hell, they played that zone in the Finals. They had a bunch of high-IQ guys. And pro’s pros. They were not going to beat themselves.

“But the thing I remember the most was Dirk making these unbelievable shots down the stretches of games. He’d make a crazy shot to give them breathing room all the time.”

At this point, Nowitzki believes the elation of 2011 never happens if not for the heartbreaks that came before.

“In 2011, I was the finisher I needed to be in the final moments,” he said. “In ’06 and ’07 I just wasn’t quite there yet to make the big baskets. It wasn’t fun to go through those years when we were favorites but it’s part of my journey and it made me a better player and person for sure.”

Nobody quibbles with that last part. Nowitzki’s lack of drama and pretense drew mentions time and again from people contacted for this story.

“He was the greatest superstar teammate that I’ve ever seen,” Carlisle said. “He had a really humble demeanor, he knew who he was, he knew what his responsibility was.”

Shawn Marion, the 2011 teammate who refers to Nowitzki as the “7-Foot Rainbow Assassin,” also said: “His ego never got in the way of what the biggest goal was. He’s a quiet leader. And he had a bit of a joker side to him too.”

And over the years, with Nowitzki now focused on family, a low-demand Mavericks consultancy and a relaxed TBD future, those close to him have reconciled the global icon vs. Mavericks fixture split.

“Dirk became very Americanized,” Carlisle said, “where Germany and Europe could feel like he was theirs, and the people of Dallas could feel like he was theirs. And no one needed to fight about it.”

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Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Twitter.

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