Basketball

NBA 75: At No. 21, Dirk Nowitzki, the greatest outside shooting 7-footer in history and a one-team superstar in the superteam era


Welcome to the NBA 75, The Athletic’s countdown of the 75 best players in NBA history, in honor of the league’s diamond anniversary. We’ll unveil a new player on the list every weekday through Feb. 18, culminating with the man picked by a panel of The Athletic NBA staff members as the greatest of all time.

You might think the hero’s journey sounds pleasant. You’re traveling somewhere, learning something, getting to be the good guy the entire time. Everyone watching knows how your story ends. That the setbacks are temporary, the tribulations are growth. But the hero doesn’t know that when the story’s being written. The journey must be endured.

Dirk Nowitzki’s second career — the eight seasons he played after his 2011 championship — was as a universally beloved paragon of the sport, someone whose influence was increasingly evident every time big men stepped back for 3s, whose loyalty to the franchise trading for him grew with each discounted contract he signed. In his final season, opposing fans chanted his name, and rival coaches stopped mid-game to lead standing ovations. It was the validation he earned for 21 years — but it wasn’t always this way.

On June 2, 2011, Nowitzki stood straight, his hands holding the basketball, his back facing the basket, his eyes glancing to the shot clock on the floor’s other end. But his shoulders showed no sign of the weight they carried, the years he had been perceived and doubted.





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