Getting old sucks. Being a star athlete and getting old is even worse. Some skills get better with age, such as the ability to reason, self-awareness and drawing from experience. Dirk Nowitzki has shown he’s got all of those traits and is the model for how NBA stars can age gracefully.
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Nowitzki is going to be 37 years old by the time the 2015-16 season tips off and he’s well aware that if the Dallas Mavericks are going to win a championship, it’s not going to be because he turned back the clock a decade. Dirk told Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News just that:
"“I know that, at 37, I can’t be the No. 1 option if we want to play for the championship. That’s how the cycle goes. Really, if you look at our roster, we only got four or five guys, so we got a lot of work to do. We need a little bit of everything.”"
It’s refreshing to hear a former star — and one of the best shooting bigs in the history of the sport — have that kind of awareness. He’s not Kobe Bryant, clinging to the past glory of being the No. 1 option on a championship team. Instead, he’s embracing a lesser role and is encouraging better players to come to Dallas to take on the No. 1 spot.
In fact, Nowitzki has gone so far as to encourage Mark Cuban and Mavericks management to bring in a guy who plays exactly the same position — LaMarcus Aldridge.
Aldridge is a natural fit in terms of locale, as he was born in Dallas and played collegiately at the University of Texas at Austin. It would shift Nowitzki around in terms of role and scope in the offense, but if the last few seasons are any indication, Dirk would be fine with that.
Last season, Dirk played the fewest minutes per game (29.6) since his rookie year (20.4). His 17.3 points per game matched his injury-riddled 2012-13 campaign and only bests his rookie total of 8.2 points.
Nowitzki began the inevitable evolution that all aging players must go through five years ago, as he began moving further and further from the basket. Would it surprise you to know that he took 91.9 percent of his shots from two-point range in 2009-10? Since then, Dirk’s average shot distance has gone further away from the basket every season — to a career-long 16.9 feet in 2014-15.
Instead of fighting his age, Dirk continues to adapt to it. He understands that his age and the degradation of his athletic ability necessitates a change in approach. He’s also well aware that he’s not a two-way player and although he’s still too good to be a role player, he understands that his contributions will have to be more focused and his opportunities less plentiful.
When he talked at the Academy Sports at Episcopal School of Dallas, he praised Aldridge for being all of the things that Dirk can no longer be:
"“We’d love to have him. He’s a great mid-range shooter. He plays bigger than he is on the defensive end. He’s a good rebounder on both ends of the floor, and on that left block he’s a beast. So I mean, he’s a really, really good player…We’ve been ousted twice in the first round the last two years, and whatever I got to do, I’m ready to help.”"
It’s that sacrifice that has been the hallmark of NBA Champions for the last decade. The Golden State Warriors had David Lee and Andre Iguodala make huge sacrifices. Before that the San Antonio Spurs showed that a team full of selfless players is greater than the sum of it’s parts and before them the Miami Heat had three stars give up the spotlight for the greater good.
The days of Dirk putting up 27.7 points, 8.1 rebounds and 2.5 assists on a shooting line of .485/.460/.941 for a 21-game playoff run are long gone — and he knows it. Luckily for Mavericks fans, he’s the model that all aging stars should emulate, as he isn’t blinded by hubris and knows where his abilities can take him.
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