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Dirk Nowitzki’s Career Deserves A Better End

By Jameson Miller

Jan 3, 2014; Dallas, TX, USA; Dallas Mavericks power forward Dirk Nowitzki (41) looks to pass as Los Angeles Clippers center DeAndre Jordan (6) defends during the first half at the American Airlines Center. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 3, 2014; Dallas, TX, USA; Dallas Mavericks power forward Dirk Nowitzki (41) looks to pass as Los Angeles Clippers center DeAndre Jordan (6) defends during the first half at the American Airlines Center. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports /
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With the NBA’s free agency moratorium period officially behind us, coming and going with all the authoritative clout of an elementary school hall monitor, players and teams are now free to legally legitimize their week-old betrothals by putting pen to paper.

Yet, as fans sat back and watched the vaudeville of the DeAndre Jordan Situation unfold on Wednesday, a very tall, very humble mensch of a guy in Dirk Nowitzki saw the winter of his NBA career transform from the woods on a snowy evening to the cannibalized aftermath of some Donner Party hellscape.

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DeAndre Jordan was never going to make contenders out of the Dallas Mavericks. In fact, with their hodgepodge of backcourt players, the uncertain health status of free agent acquisition Wesley Mathews, and the calcification of Dirk’s lower extremities, the Mavs weren’t even a lock for a top-eight spot in the brutal Western Conference.

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Still, an athletic pick-and-roll dynamo and imposing defensive presence like Jordan could have provided Dallas with some semblance of a competitive roster that, if nothing else, would have kept them in the hunt for a playoff spot and at least tangentially relevant.

Now, as DeAndre’s return to Los Angeles is made official with photographic proof of his signature on the line which is dotted, the Mavericks are left with over $18 million in cap space with no one of note to spend it on, not to mention a deeply flawed roster built around a 37-year-old superstar with only a handful of years left in the league.

While I was not one of the many folks on Twitter yesterday crying foul at the shaky morality of DeAndre’s flip flopping and how it altered tens of millions of dollars in ensuing business transactions and kept the Mavericks from formulating any viable plan B, it’s hard not to feel the gut punch this must be for Dirk.

Germany’s favorite son has forfeited untold sums of cash in hopes of helping Mark Cuban and the Mavericks lure impact free agents to join him in Big D. Now, Nowitzki is left with a barren roster and an owner who has publicly stated his intention to tank the season if this very scenario came to pass.

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    • Dirk is now faced with the unsavory choice of having to waste away on a lottery-bound team in Dallas or demanding a trade to a playoff contender, which is to say, Dirk will be spending his last few years wasting away on a lottery-bound team in Dallas. It’s almost impossible to see someone who has shown the Mavericks unwavering loyalty for the last decade and a half suddenly turn sour on the only organization he has ever called home.

    With DeAndre Jordan’s unexpected (though totally legal) change of heart comes the beginning of the end for arguably the greatest European player ever, and a renewal of the debate over whether long-tenured stars should have to take discounts to aid their team’s reloading and rebuilding efforts.

    On the one hand, one could point at Tim Duncan‘s late-career hometown discounts as proof that monetary selflessness leads to contention. Yet on the other hand, anyone could just as easily laud Kobe Bryant for claiming every penny he’s worth during what would have likely been non-playoff years regardless of how much of the salary cap his contract ate up.

    I don’t blame DeAndre Jordan for opting to stick with a better team and make more money, and his presence in Dallas might not have saved Dirk from living out the remainder of his NBA life in seventh seed basketball purgatory; it’s just a shame that Jordan’s change of heart all but guarantees something worse.

    Next: DeAndre Jordan Made The Right Decision In The Wrong Way

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