Becoming a true NBA superstar has not changed the fact that the national team is deep in the heart of Dirk Nowitzki. He has brought Germany close to the top, but now he needs to take one more step to reach his first major title.
How much more can one single player do? Remember 2001? Dirk Nowitzki was the true MVP of the 2001 EuroBasket (28,7 points 9,1 rebounds, 51,6% shooting). He took his team to the semi finals all by himself and only lost in overtime against Turkey. Even at his best, Nowitzki was not enough to bring back the title. He was really close though. Can he do any better than that?
This year, Dirk Nowitzki is coming off of his best individual season ever in the NBA (26.1 pts, 9.7 rebounds, 3.1 assists). He has been the first European ever to be elected to the All-NBA first team. He proved that he could play without his best friend, the wonderful playmaker Steve Nash. He has taken on the leadership and the responsibilities in the franchise. Offensively, he’s now very consistent, and on a bad shooting night, he still manages to pour in twenty points.
He’s definitely one of the finest offensive players in the game, a unique combination of height, quickness and shooting range. On the defensive end, Nowitzki will never be a great stopper individually, but he can fit nicely in a team defense and brings defensive rebounds (2nd in the NBA with 8,5), steals (1,24) and blocked-shots (1,53). In the qualifying round, Nowitzki was relieved from the injuries that bothered him in 2003 and 2004. Healthy, the kid from Würzburg was no match for the other teams.
Physically, the German star should be at his prime, but psychologically, he could be a little weaker. First he appeared very fragile in the NBA playoffs this year. In offense, he went through hell against smaller forwards and never really found his way out of it. For the first time on a court, he lost his temper and yelled at his teammates. Even more worrying for him, his friend and mentor, Holger Geschwinder, has been arrested this summer and put in jail for tax evasion charges. Nowitzki is very close to the man that built him into a seven-foot shooting forward. The former player taught him do push up on his fingertips to improve his shooting touch when he was sixteen and since then, has always been around to help Nowitzki whenever he had a slump. He also opened the player’s mind to more than just basketball: they talked about music, philosophy, life experience in general. “It's difficult for me to concentrate on basketball", Nowitzki said in August. "I'm training every day as good as I can. Even though the championships aren't the main thing on my mind, I will gladly play but I can't even imagine, though, a championship without my long-time friend and coach."
