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Dallas Mavericks: Dirk Nowitzki Subject Of New Film

By Phil Watson

Apr 8, 2015; Dallas, TX, USA; Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki (41) celebrates making a basket against the Phoenix Suns during the second half at the American Airlines Center. The Mavericks defeated the Suns 107-104. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports
Apr 8, 2015; Dallas, TX, USA; Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki (41) celebrates making a basket against the Phoenix Suns during the second half at the American Airlines Center. The Mavericks defeated the Suns 107-104. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports /
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Dirk Nowitzki has broken a lot of barriers in his lengthy NBA career—first, and only, European player to be named the league’s MVP; just the second Euro player to be named NBA Finals MVP, joining Frenchman Tony Parker; and no European has scored more points or grabbed more rebounds and only Peja Stojakovic has made more 3-pointers.

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Now the Dallas Mavericks legend, who will represent Germany for the first time in four years at EuroBasket 2015 in an effort to help the hosts qualify for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics next year, is the subject of a new documentary by writer/director Sebastian Dehnhardt entitled Nowitzki: The Perfect Shot.

The film features interviews with Kobe Bryant, Yao Ming, Steve Nash, Jason Kidd, Mark Cuban and others and promises to “explore Dirk’s basketball development and career highs and lows,” according to ESPN Dallas.

Here is a trailer for the film, scheduled for release July 10:

This is Dehnhardt’s second sports documentary. His first, Klitchsko, detailed the lives of the boxing brothers Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko. Born in Namibia, Dehnhardt has directed 36 German-language films since 1997, according to the Internet Movie Database.

Nowitzki came to the U.S. as a tall, skinny 20-year-old, taken ninth overall in the 1998 NBA Draft by the Milwaukee Bucks, with his rights being immediately swapped to the Mavericks along with the rights to No. 19 overall pick Pat Garrity for the draft rights to the sixth overall selection, the late Robert Traylor.

It was the best acquisition in Dallas history, bar none.

Dirk didn’t show many signs of being a star while averaging 8.2 points, 3.4 rebounds and one assist in 20.4 minutes per game in 47 games during the lockout-shortened 1998-99 campaign. The Mavericks were a woeful 19-31 and Nowitzki struggled to hit the broad side of a barn, shooting .405/.206/.773.

But he broke out in 1999-2000, earning a starting job and averaging 17.5 points, 6.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists on .461/.379/.830 shooting as the Mavericks improved to 40-42.

The breakthrough came in 2000-01, as Nowitzki improved his numbers to 21.8 points, 9.2 rebounds and 1.2 blocks per game and shot .474/.387/.838 while leading Dallas to the playoffs for the first time in 11 years.

He earned the first of his 13 All-Star selections the following season, helped Dallas to the Western Conference Finals in 2003 and the franchise’s first NBA Finals in 2006, a six-game loss to the Miami Heat after the team won the first two games at home.

That was followed by the highs and lows of 2006-07—an MVP campaign, membership in the rare 50/40/90 club after shooting .502/.416/.904 and the best record in franchise history, an NBA-best 67-15 mark.

Those were the highs.

The lows came soon after. The Mavericks were ambushed in the first round by the Golden State Warriors, losing the series in six games while Dirk was held to averages of 19.7 points and 11.3 rebounds per game and shot just .383/.211/.840.

He had to endure the ignominy of receiving his MVP award not in front of an arena full of adoring home fans prior to a playoff contest, but rather at a press conference.

The Mavs slid after that—51 wins and a first-round exit in 2007-08, 50 wins and bounced in the second round in 2008-09 and a 55-27 campaign in 2009-10 that included another first-round defeat.

Dirk, who would turn 32 before the 2010-11 season, was running out of time and out of chances.

Or so it seemed.

Nowitzki played less but achieved more that season, averaging 34.3 minutes a game—the lowest since his rookie year—and 23 points per game, his lowest in seven years.

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    • But he had a career-high .612 true-shooting percentage, shot better than 50 percent overall for the first time since his MVP season and carried the Mavericks to an unlikely berth in the NBA Finals after Dallas finished third in the West.

    That earned the Mavs another date with the Heat—only this time it was the super-team Heat, the first year of the collaboration of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami, and most pundits thought it was not a question of if, but rather how soon, the Heat would claim the big trophy.

    But Dirk was … Dirk … in the Finals, averaging 40.4 minutes a game and putting up 26 points and 9.7 rebounds a night, earning Finals MVP honors as the Mavericks stunned the Heat in six games, celebrating the title much as Miami had five years earlier … on their opponent’s home court.

    Nowitzki will be 37 on June 19, a veteran of 17 NBA seasons with 28,119 regular-season points (seventh all-time, 477 behind sixth-place Shaquille O’Neal and just 1,881 shy of joining Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Bryant, Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain as the only 30,000-point scorers in NBA history (Julius Erving scored 30,026 points, including his ABA totals).

    Considering he scored only 1,333 points last season, the 30,000 mark would seem to be at least two seasons away. But I think getting there would put a nice bow on the career of the greatest European player in NBA history.

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