Dirk Nowitzki

[white lightning]

Dirk re-ups again with Dallas, which will make him only the second player in NBA history along with Kobe Bryant to spend 20 years with the same team.

Dirk Nowitzki re-signs with Mavericks, to return for 20th season

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/...s-mavericks-finalizing-2-year-10-million-deal

Despite us not agreeing with what he does off the court, he is the best white player outside of Larry Bird. I would have also mention John Havlicek, John Stockton, Steve Nash, Jerry West and Pistol Pete Maravich up there too. Many others but when all is said and done Nowitzki will be in the top 6 nba scorers ever and maybe even top 5! That is simply incredible. Happy he still enjoys the game.

On a side note, I wish Jim Thome could have played a few more seasons. He is also in the rarest of the rare 600 career mlb
homeruns club. Amazing accomplishment!

 

[Shadowlight]

I was just a kid when Jerry West was playing but trying to compile a list of the top 5 or 10 white ballers is difficult. Larry legend is far ahead of the pack so that is an easy choice. From there it gets tough. There were players way before our time like Bob Petit whose team the St Louis Hawks did the impossible and beat Bill Russell's Celtics in 6 games for the title in 1958. In that game Petit poured in 50 points. As for Jerry West I got glimpses of his final years and for me I would list him second. If Bill Walton had remained healthy I could see him near the top or at the very least the top 5 and at his best he was better than Dirk. But you can't rank Walton higher than Dirk based on three or four great years. I do not have Pistol Pete rated in the top 10 and some guys like Dave Cowens were brilliant for a shorter period of time than Dirk but in his prime Cowens was better than Dirk as well in my opinion. The guy was an animal. But if you factor in Dirk's longevity and consistency there is a case to be made for the man. Unlike Stockton and Nash, Dirk bagged a title and that scores a lot of brownie points. A low key pleasant type Dirk is certainly likeable but it is a tough call as to where to place him. I guess it depends on what a person thinks is more important. I tend to favor players at their peak (probably the wrong way to look at it ha) so I would likely not place Dirk in the top 5, maybe 6 or 7 but he is better than Havlicek. All told a great career and the best shooting big man right up there with Larry.

 

[white lightning]

Long live King Dirk Nowitzki. He passed the Great Wilt Chamberlain tonight. I'm so pumped as he did this even faster than we thought possible. He has proven he is one of the greatest scorers and
basketball players to ever live. He is now 6th all time in NBA Scoring! Congrats Dirk. What an amazing career!

 

[Don Wassall]

Congrats to Dirk, really the only great White player since the days of Bird and Stockton. Well, Steve Nash was a great one too.

Didn't realize this longstanding thread had so many posts, well over 800!

 

[Freethinker]

Congrats to Dirk, really the only great White player since the days of Bird and Stockton. Well, Steve Nash was a great one too.

Didn't realize this longstanding thread had so many posts, well over 800!

Yes, congratulations to Dirk indeed.

Ironically, the next generational talents capable of being all-time greats are also on the Dallas Mavericks; Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis. With Dirk, Nash (part of career), Luka and KP the Mavericks can be viewed as a NE Patriots of the NBA. An outlier that constantly has Whites as the star players.

 

[Riggins44]

So awesome to see. What a sublime career Dirk has had. He should have won two championships instead of one, but there was the obvious officiating scandal that one of the refs went to jail over in the first series with Miami that the NBA swept under the rug. Dirk is a first ballot Hall Of Famer, and beyond that he is one of the all time greats.

 

[Shadowlight]

Last night was Dirk's final home game so they had a nice ceremony. Former stars Scottie Pippen, Shawn Kemp, Detlef Schrempf, Charles Barkley and even Larry Bird showed up on the court with him. Very respectful kiss off (Dallas plays final game on road tonight) for a player that had a long outstanding career. And one that was generally well liked throughout the league. I think Dirk is very sophisticated too. I think he likes opera?

It is a good thing he won a championship. That always helps a player's legacy. It was 2011 against the stacked Heat with LeBron, Wade and Bosh. Dirk won the MVP in that series and people were shocked Dallas won. And LeBron lost. Until the latter part of his career Dirk's Mavs team were always in contention.

Dirk had a mediocre rookie season (1998-99) and I remember the complaints about foreign players were getting louder back then. But he quickly quieted those folks down as he became a prolific scorer ( a big man who could also shoot from deep) and rebounder and his teams were always in the hunt. I rooted for the Mavs back then and especially when he was teamed up with Steve Nash.

Some players have an endurance gene and some fizzle out after a period. Dirk just kept on motoring. Was league MVP in 2007.

Now the torch has been passed to Luka Doncic. Luka had a triple double in the win last night and Dirk looked like his old self pouring in 30 points which is something considering how old he is.

As for Luka there are a couple of similarities to Dirk. Neither is what you call off the charts run/ jump testers but they have the feel, intuition and skill level to succeed at the highest levels. The NBA today is dotted with skilled not overly athletic types like Kyrie Irving and James Harden and Luka fits that mold. Heck Ty Jerome of Virginia just proved you don't have to be a stellar run/jump athlete to win. You need smarts and dexterity and quick thinking to go with fundamental basketball skills. Too often these run/ jump athletes turn out to be terrible basketball players who can't function within a team system.

Dirk because of his size and dexterity and shooting touch was a nightmare for opponents. And he got his hands dirty in the rebounding department.

Porzingis is not Dirk. He lacks the understanding of how to win games that came naturally to Dirk. One of the reasons the Knicks traded him. Porzingis is more like the raw black athletes that have entered the league, learning on the fly. He has great talent of course but can he process the game properly? It will be interesting though to see how he and Luka bring the Mavs back into contention. This team has a lot of holes to fill so their draft should be of great interest.

 

[BeyondFedUp]

Great points, Shadowlight.

I've always liked Dirk's game, and as you said, he was a nightmare to opposing teams. He could play lights out from anywhere, and truly is one of the all-time great big men of the game. He was phenomenal.

I remember Stern presenting him with the Finals MVP Trophy and I swear he (Stern) was so disgusted by it he pronounced Dirk's name wrong on purpose! No one can convince me otherwise. Anyone can search YouTube and watch it for themselves.

I can only think of one reason Dirk hasn't gotten the widespread accolades he should have gotten...

Great career. He'll be missed.

 

[white lightning]

Long live King Dirk Nowitzki. He will be sorely missed but at least the Mavs look good going forward. There will never be another Dirk though.

 

[Shadowlight]

The best players make a difference. The greatest example of that is Larry Bird who single handedly turned a rotting Celtics team into an overnight contender in his rookie season.

But below if you glance at the Mavs record through the Dirk years you can see his winning imprint. There was some improvement for a couple of years but after that the Mavs were always contending. So for a good ten plus years Dirk was leading them into contention. They only fell off a couple of years after their title in 2011 but rebounded a bit for a couple of years later. The past few years past his prime haven't been great but the records speak for themselves. Dirk turned around the Mavs and made them very good to great for a long time. That is what separates the good players from the great players.

He hoisted the team up to two finals, (won one), one conference final and four conference semifinals. As they say. Not too shabby.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dallas_Mavericks_seasons

 

[Freethinker]

Last night was Dirk's final home game so they had a nice ceremony. Former stars Scottie Pippen, Shawn Kemp, Detlef Schrempf, Charles Barkley and even Larry Bird showed up on the court with him. Very respectful kiss off (Dallas plays final game on road tonight) for a player that had a long outstanding career. And one that was generally well liked throughout the league. I think Dirk is very sophisticated too. I think he likes opera?

It is a good thing he won a championship. That always helps a player's legacy. It was 2011 against the stacked Heat with LeBron, Wade and Bosh. Dirk won the MVP in that series and people were shocked Dallas won. And LeBron lost. Until the latter part of his career Dirk's Mavs team were always in contention.

Dirk had a mediocre rookie season (1998-99) and I remember the complaints about foreign players were getting louder back then. But he quickly quieted those folks down as he became a prolific scorer ( a big man who could also shoot from deep) and rebounder and his teams were always in the hunt. I rooted for the Mavs back then and especially when he was teamed up with Steve Nash.

Some players have an endurance gene and some fizzle out after a period. Dirk just kept on motoring. Was league MVP in 2007.

Now the torch has been passed to Luka Doncic. Luka had a triple double in the win last night and Dirk looked like his old self pouring in 30 points which is something considering how old he is.

As for Luka there are a couple of similarities to Dirk. Neither is what you call off the charts run/ jump testers but they have the feel, intuition and skill level to succeed at the highest levels. The NBA today is dotted with skilled not overly athletic types like Kyrie Irving and James Harden and Luka fits that mold. Heck Ty Jerome of Virginia just proved you don't have to be a stellar run/jump athlete to win. You need smarts and dexterity and quick thinking to go with fundamental basketball skills. Too often these run/ jump athletes turn out to be terrible basketball players who can't function within a team system.

Dirk because of his size and dexterity and shooting touch was a nightmare for opponents. And he got his hands dirty in the rebounding department.

Porzingis is not Dirk. He lacks the understanding of how to win games that came naturally to Dirk. One of the reasons the Knicks traded him. Porzingis is more like the raw black athletes that have entered the league, learning on the fly. He has great talent of course but can he process the game properly? It will be interesting though to see how he and Luka bring the Mavs back into contention. This team has a lot of holes to fill so their draft should be of great interest.

Dirk set the mark last night as the oldest player at age 40 to ever score 30 points. Just a feather in his already impressive NBA cap.

 

[Deceptive Speed]

Dirk will be forever missed! He's of course gonna go down as the best Euro player the NBA has seen, and hes helped pave the way for more white Euros to be able play at a high level here in our racist league called the NBA.

 

[Bucky]

Good to see Dirk finish strong in his last game!

 

[white lightning]

Dirk will be forever missed! He's of course gonna go down as the best Euro player the NBA has seen, and hes helped pave the way for more white Euros to be able play at a high level here in our racist league called the NBA.

Dirk should be regarded as one of the best players of all time. Why do you ask? He has more points than Wilt Chamberlain and Shaquille Oneal just for starters. Nowitzki is the 6th leading scorer in nba history and 1 of only 6 guys with over 30,000 career points. I believe that
puts him as an all time great player and not just an all time great european player. Now ask yourself why Wilt the Stilt and Shaq are still
talked about as 2 of the greatest of all time yet they ignore praising Dirk Nowitzki?


LeBron James tops the scoring list with 39,124 points and is the only other active player in the top 25. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (38,387) is second, followed by Karl Malone (36,928), Kobe Bryant (33,643), Michael Jordan (32,292), Dirk Nowitzki (31,560), Wilt Chamberlain (31,419), Shaquille O'Neal (28,596) and Carmelo Anthony (28,289).