[MavsFanFinley]

Mavs now Nowitkzi's team

By JAIME ARON, AP Sports Writer
October 31, 2004

DALLAS (AP) -- When the Dallas Mavericks walked onto the practice court for their first official gathering of the season, everyone was wearing a game jersey except the tall blonde guy at the end of the line, the one whose name and number were hidden beneath a gray T-shirt.

No problem. Even with all the new faces on the roster, Dirk Nowitzki needs no introduction.

Especially not this season.

With his good buddy Steve Nash gone to Phoenix and Michael Finley not getting any younger, Nowitzki is no longer merely part of the Big Three that carried Dallas from lottery mainstay to playoff perennial.

Now 26 and entering his seventh season, Nowitzki is being pushed to stop deferring and start accepting the leadership role that comes with being such a talented player -- and with having the roster reshaped specifically to benefit him.

Simply put, the Dallas Mavericks are now his team, whether he likes it or not.

``He better understand it quick,'' said former teammate Avery Johnson, now the team's lead assistant coach. ``It's good to be humble about it, but behind the scenes and during the course of a game, we need to know it's his team.''

Nowitzki was a teenager who had just moved out of his parents' house in Germany when he came to the Mavericks. It was understandable that he looked up to Nash and to Finley, the team's unquestioned leader.

But then Nowitzki and Nash became All-Stars and Finley didn't. Last season, only Nowitzki made it, yet he still acted like a follower instead of a leader.

As Nowitzki has blossomed, Finley has tried urging him to take over. Knowing it wasn't Nowitzki's nature, Finley never pushed the issue.

Until now.

``This is Dirk's chance and his time to take his game to another level,'' Finley said. ``He's at the point physically and mentally where he can do that.

``For this team to be as successful as we want it to be, he has to be ranked in the top five when they talk about MVPs at the middle or end of the season. I think he has the capability of being that kind of player.''

League general managers do, too, as they recently voted him the NBA's top foreign player. The people who run the Mavericks believe in Nowitzki so much that after failing to land Shaquille O'Neal they began building the club around him.

It was a big shift from last offseason, when Dallas opted to have Nowitzki play alongside scorers Antoine Walker and Antawn Jamison. The club never meshed and was bounced from the playoffs in the first round.

Part of it was that Walker and Jamison played the same position as Nowitzki, just not as well. And, being a good teammate and his usual, respectful self, Nowitzki cut them too much slack.

He passed up shots to get them the ball and let them take his favorite spots on the court. Nowitzki's scoring, rebounding and assist averages all ended up dropping, something that had never happened in any category.

So Dallas got rid of Walker and Jamison, replacing them with Erick Dampier, a prototypical center, and Jerry Stackhouse, who can play shooting guard or small forward.

As the unquestioned power forward, Nowitzki is free to do what he does best -- use his range to draw opposing power forwards to the perimeter, then his quickness to drive past them, and on defense he won't be trying to guard centers or small forwards.

``As he goes, this team goes,'' said Finley, who is switching from shooting guard to small forward as part of the shake-up. ``It's a little bit of pressure on him, but he can handle that now.''

Except for one important thing: He might not want to.

``You can't make leadership happen,'' Dallas coach Don Nelson said. ``Dirk is now at the age that he has it, if that's the way he wants to go. If he doesn't want to, it'll happen in another year or two.

``It would be good if he would step up now without Steve and be more vocal and do a lot of things that leaders need to do. But I can't make that happen.''

Despite it all, there are indications Nowitzki is merely being polite and shy, that his laid-back demeanor hides an intensity that's ready to bust out, starting Tuesday night against Sacramento. A hint came in response to a question about the misery of last season.

``I've still got to be aggressive. That's what I've learned,'' Nowitzki said. ``I can't pass up shots. I can't really think about teammates that might have been open at that point.

``I've still got to play my game and I should be all right.''

If so, the Dallas Mavericks will be, too.