Official Dirk is Great Thread

[markus1234]

Do you think Dirk is shrinking already or what ?

[spreedom]

Originally Posted by markus1234

Do you think Dirk is shrinking already or what ?

I hope not, because 6'2" Dirk probably doesn't belong in the NBA.

[Rick41]

Originally Posted by markus1234

Do you think Dirk is shrinking already or what ?

The average dude ain't 7 ft tall. (no I don't know who that is)

[markus1234]

I'd say it is this guy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viljar_Veski
http://www.facebook.com/Basket.ee

[GermanDunk]

Dirk and Holger sighting

[Dim499]

Originally Posted by GermanDunk

Dirk and Holger sighting

Dirk in the stands with his dad at Bayern v Valencia. That means Wurzburg to Vegas to Dallas to Kenya to Munich and more this summer. How can he afford all those trips?

[EricaLubarsky]

Originally Posted by Dim499

Dirk in the stands with his dad at Bayern v Valencia. That means Wurzburg to Vegas to Dallas to Kenya to Munich and more this summer. How can he afford all those trips?

1) sometimes its professional
2) An $80 million contract

[Dim499]

Originally Posted by EricaLubarsky

1) sometimes its professional
2) An $80 million contract

I actually love it. Last week he spent a day with 50 underprivileged children in rural Bavaria within the frameworks of his foundation. He has also mentioned in a German interview that he is following a relatively strict strength and fitness program (while staying away from a basketball) to stay in shape and to not start the season like last year.

[GermanDunk]

Originally Posted by Dim499

How can he afford all those trips?

He helped his father painting houses and saved some bucks. + He is backpacker

[markus1234]

Do not forget Wimbledon...

[GermanDunk]

Originally Posted by Dim499

Dirk in the stands with his dad at Bayern v Valencia. That means Wurzburg to Vegas to Dallas to Kenya to Munich and more this summer. How can he afford all those trips?

Korrekt. Dirk und sein Vater, nicht Gschwindner.

[b_o_r]

Originally Posted by Dim499

Dirk in the stands with his dad at Bayern v Valencia. That means Wurzburg to Vegas to Dallas to Kenya to Munich and more this summer. How can he afford all those trips?

Didn't Cuban and American Airlines give him 100K miles for free for his birthday during the championship parade celebration at the AAC?

[Bayliss]

He also doesn't blow his money on entourages/women/etc like a lot of athletes. A lot of his money (he has said it numerous times) is in safe investments just building.

[Underdog]

Originally Posted by Dim499

How can he afford all those trips?

http://www.best-reviewer.com/how-muc...m#.UFo4YLKPWzk

[sefant77]

Right now Dirk is probably spending money from his 03-04 paycheck...you know, the season with A. Walker on the team *cough*

[markus1234]

And do not forget

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjsXEBuunzg

[GermanDunk]

Originally Posted by Underdog

http://www.best-reviewer.com/how-muc...m#.UFo4YLKPWzk

Hmm. Seems good.

[Zaknaf3in]

Apparently he met the Janitor at the game? Didn't know he's into soccer? Guess Allianz Arena is worth a trip in any case.

[Rick41]

Originally Posted by markus1234

And do not forget

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjsXEBuunzg

I'm pretty sure Dirk flies American Airlines though. lol

[markus1234]

Here is the interview BTW

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klEypmWlCz0

Mike Fisher would make some sweet insider donuts out of it. Too bad he does not understand German lol.

[GhostFace]

Originally Posted by twelli

Dirk for 40 in 2011 (Dirk at his very best)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcRxWV_de4c

Awesome to see how Dirk reads the defense and creates space between him and the defenders in both games.

LOL @ 3:58-4:04 - that's right woman you just witnessed the greatness that is Dirk.

Originally Posted by SleepyEye

I thought I know all Nowitzki-Videos but this is new and fantastic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbFEFiama2M

DirkGod.

[markus1234]

http://dimemag.com/2012/09/10-best-n...since-2000/10/

[iella]

Originally Posted by markus1234

http://dimemag.com/2012/09/10-best-n...since-2000/10/

Pretty sure you meant to post this link instead: http://dimemag.com/2012/09/10-best-n...-since-2000/6/

[SleepyEye]

For those of you, who can read german language:
http://www.zeit.de/2012/39/Dirk-Nowitzki-Basketball-NBA

Very extensive (5 looong pages) hymn of praise

[Zaknaf3in]

Originally Posted by SleepyEye

For those of you, who can read german language:
http://www.zeit.de/2012/39/Dirk-Nowitzki-Basketball-NBA

Very extensive (5 looong pages) hymn of praise

Awesome read - repped. Anyone else up for translating this piece for our non-German friends?

[sbibi]

Dirk Nowitzki is a superstar in Germany - in the U.S., but he is "Saint Dirk." The writer Thomas Pletzinger hit him

Sometimes you are the random answers until one has asked his questions. The taxi driver that will take me from the airport to the hotel is Dallas, Haile is in his forties and is from Eritrea. He believes in God, generosity, and Dirk Nowitzki. Haile 41st carries a blue T-shirt with Nowitzki His taxi smells like licorice, in his rear view mirror hangs a rosary of blue and white plastic beads, the colors of the Dallas Mavericks. On his dashboard stuck an ivory plaque, St. Christopher, patron saint of motorists. Right next: a gold-framed autographed by Dirk Nowitzki with long hair and headband.

Nowitzki is the reason why I came to Dallas, but it knows the taxi driver nothing when he "Saint Dirk," says, smiling, "savior of Dallas basketball." The traffic is thick, the sun is steep on the asphalt, the Air conditioning of the taxi whines. Haile hoots and cheers and hands me licorice. Why I came to Dallas, he asks. I am here to meet Dirk Nowitzki, I explain, nodding toward the dashboard, toward blue-white rosary, there are even now play-offs. Haile turns at full speed and stares at me stunned. "You're meeting Dirk? Are you fucking joking? "

DISPLAY

Like many others, I have dreamed of a basketball career. I've given up dreaming of 1994 when it first heard rumors of a talented asparagus Tarzan from Würzburg, 16 years old, six feet tall, very agile and with an excellent throw. In the gym it was said that he had the makings of a best players in Germany. A few years later I saw Nowitzki will play for the first time, Brandt Hagen against Würzburg, it must have been the 1998th The game was not sold out. Nowitzki was now 2.13 meters and had no longer even then stick to the rules and roles to which they believed in Germany: Large and heavy players under the basket, small and fast outward. Nowitzki was everything. He was big, fast and clever, it could take anywhere and meet, he dribbled and found his open teammates - he dominated the game at all levels. Nowitzki seemed to be able to read the structure of the game better, he seemed to think fast. He was unlike any other basketball player that we knew back then. My old team won the game against Würzburg, but we were the future of the game saw.

Basketball has never let me alone. I love the game, I play rarely. I'm an enthusiast, in rare moments, I'm fan when I see basketball games is as a melancholy enthusiasm, a joyful nostalgia, a pleasant sorrow for the things that once seemed possible, but have never done so. Such as myself, there are many: nostalgic and statistics lovers, theoretical athletes. Dirk Nowitzki is our substitute. He is all we have become ever. Only much, much better.

In Germany, Dirk Nowitzki is known as the game that he plays. He is famous because he is famous. For years, he advertises for a bank and a sports brand. He sits at Wetten, dass.?. Nowitzki in the U.S. is a real superstar. He is one of the absolute best of all-American sport. The home fans love Nowitzki, the opposing fear him. Rightly so. Journalists and cultural scientists write about the fascinating Nowitzki. Angela Merkel receives him as chancellor, Barack Obama receives him at the White House. Nowitzki is the best European to ever play the game. He is the best white basketball player of his time. He was the most valuable player of the finals series , standard-bearer at the Olympics, Allstar, NBA champion. His playing has a huge sports knowledge America was - statistically, historically and tactically. More, Nowitzki has changed fundamentally an American game, he revolutionized it. Basketball for Nowitzki is unlike basketball before him moving, variable, less expectable, fine, sophisticated.

I'm in Dallas, to tell of Nowitzki's importance and the reasons thereof. There is an unbelievable amount of texts to Nowitzki, there are biographies, there are hundreds of interviews and profiles. Dirk Nowitzki is in the gala, the Golden Leaf and the SUPERillu. The story that is told is always the same: A boy from Wuerzburg to all resistances and improbabilities Despite one of the best basketball players in the world. With the help of an eccentric-genius mentor, he is unconventional, trained in the seclusion of the Upper Franconian school gymnasium and finally reaches its ultimate goal. There is a legend, a hero story with forgivable nicks. And I'm here to tell you something new.

Heroes have to protect yourself. The system is a closed Nowitzki. Dirk and I do have mutual friends - Mithat Demirel, his roommate at the national team , and most capped player Patrick Femerling - but there are unwritten laws, and Nowitzki's teammates would chop off rather their throwing hand, rather than betray his phone number. It remained the official channels. When I finally got in Dallas, so I hoping this will be a lead to another. The press officer of the Mavericks has promised me an interview with him. Ten minutes after the game. Tonight.

I have noted questions about his rituals. After the boredom of life as a professional athlete. The importance of skin color for his fame, the importance of race in sport. Whether it sometimes money worries plague (the concern of what to do with nearly twenty million dollars a year). How to fourteen years, the concentration at work so incredibly hard stops. Whether basketball him still fun, too. Whether one feels sympathy for other celebrities (or just equal pain shares). Whether he really motivation for Joseph Conrad's Typhoon reads. As he sees his position in basketball history. When was the first paparazzo showed up at his door. What do you think when the image printed police photos of ex-girlfriend, or if all the newspapers report on the tax affairs of his mentor Holger Geschwindner. If he is so down to earth, as they say. How many times he cursed everything. What hurts him most. Who to trust. What is real and what is wrong.

Now I rage with a taxi through Dallas, and Haile I answered all questions with enthusiasm. He left the highway and driving back roads to American Airlines Center: residential, industrial wastelands, cacti, a dry river bed. Parking, high-rise buildings, parking.

Haile knows all about Dirk. We hit the big moments of his career around the ears: Haile tells of Indianapolis in 2002, Germany's World Cup bronze, this unexpected success. Nowitzki was voted Most Valuable Player of the tournament. I narrate the European Championship finals in 2005 and as the audience in the Belgrade Arena shortly before the end of the Lost finale against the Greeks got closed and applauded for several minutes, as Nowitzki was replaced. Or Dirk for the lost Cup 2006: as he disappears into the catacombs, his hands above his head as if he just got a punch in the stomach when he rings to air. Dirk Nowitzki has made in the past fourteen years for a number of such moments.

"Here we are," says Haile and parked at the Victory Lane. "The house that Dirk built."

A huge banner stretches across the entrance of the arena, to a roaring Dirk and the play-off battle cry of the Mavericks: Dallas is all in. Haile laughs his faithful laugh . "Welcome to the church of Nowitzki," He is sure Dirk will win that day. He fully expects him. And I realize that I am not only flew to Dallas for an interview, I will be witness to a heroism. Haile opens the door and gives me his card. "A friend of Dirk is a friend of mine," he says. "Call me."

The plaza in front of the American Airlines Center is empty except for a few vans, the sun beats down, just like the Texas sun burns. Before an air-conditioned Fanshop ten, fifteen sellers wait for customers. All wear blue T-shirts with the playoff slogan. A friendly lady with a senior blue backcombed hair helmet to me demonstrates the complete Nowitzki range: There Nowitzki jerseys, pants, shirts, there are headbands, backpacks, slippers and pajamas, mugs, key rings, baseball caps, wool hats, Panama hats. There Dirk Nowitzki steins. Besides me, only one customer is here. He is wearing a green polo shirt and photographed two forlorn shirts Nowitzki's teammate Yi Jianlian. The man in the green polo shirt is Pari Dukovic, the photographer of this story. Pari looks like one imagines a photographer, three cameras around his neck, a bag full of rolls of film. "Dirk-This guy is famous, right?" he said, making a few pictures of Dirk-dustbins. Pari is not a sports photographer and does not understand with basketball. But he wants to get close. He usually photograph fashion, politicians, burlesque artist, he says, most interest him but, what is happening behind the stages. The coarse-grained histories of bright people. Me too, I say. We shake hands, we are now working together.

On monitors run the highlights of the championship season . Dirk throws and strikes. The Mavericks off the power to Portland, then Los Angeles. Lakers star Kobe Bryant with excess, then the young team of the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Miami Heat finally Dirk wears his defenders dozen. Against small opponents he throws, he plays against big from its mobility, it is superior in all respects. He withstands the pressure, it grows with him. Nothing helps against his dominance. "Alien" - ! "Ridirkulous" Again and again we see his one-legged jump shot in falling backwards, the flamingo fade-away, which is to defend by any opponent in the world. Nowitzki played with a fever and torn tendon in the finger. You see him with the champion trophy, you see him with the trophy for the best player of the finals series. That was a year ago, I tell Pari, who photographed the screen are now back playoffs, the Mavericks play with another team and have lost the first two games. One year changed everything.

The parking lots are filling, the hall is opened, and when the game starts, I'm standing in the middle of an inconceivable passion for Dirk, Dirk, Dirk again and again, but already in the first quarter of the game can even deflate the perfect staging. It does not run smoothly, even with Nowitzki. I'm too tired to understand the complex tactical texture of this game, but I see that the Mavericks lose. Dirk is replaced. The second half of my time in the press box under the roof and see the game get out of reach. The Mavericks and I find no access to the game. I hear the frantic tapping of American journalists around me jot Scores, and as I look up again, the game is over and lost 79:95.

Pari and I are sitting in the press room, waiting for Dirk, who must occur after every major game before the journalists. Going from the interview today, unfortunately, nothing more, a spokeswoman tells me, not after such a defeat, but I had 25, maybe 30 seconds after the press conference to introduce myself. Nowitzki answered all questions in regard strained politeness, and when he leaves the press room frustrated, I'm running behind and put him in the hall - imagine without me - a question that is too stupid to write it here. Nowitzki looks at me aghast, but again immediately collects and signs the basketball a little boy. "Good night, buddy," he says. Then he disappeared.

Two days later, the Mavericks have their backs to the wall - if they lose, they are out. Early in the morning I walk to the arena. Dirk's face on the front hall looks more determined than they were two days, rested. Our meeting has now been postponed five times. Dirk needed his concentration, we are told. Instead, I speak with bus drivers, ticket sellers and drunks (everyone here calls him Dirk, with ö). It is always the same: Dirk's incredible Dirk is nice, Dirk is one of us. The security personnel greeted in German.

On the morning of the decisive matchday Donnie Nelson is our substitute for Dirk. Nelson is general manager of the Mavericks and Nowitzki has taken 1998 by Dallas. He sits in his office between stacks of paper, cups and commemorative photos and comes straight to the point. Unsolicited, he tells us how terrible Dirks was first year here. Whistles from the audience taunts in the newspapers, the leagues ridicule. Nelson leans back, he sees along the walls, on the Sports Illustrated magazine covers and team images on the cups. Suddenly he throws completely ansatzlos a sparkly thing in my direction. Only with luck I'll start the part. Nelson's laugh is louder than expected. I hold a master of the Mavericks ring in hand, gold and diamonds, $ 50,000 per unit. "A test," says Nelson, I had good hands.

What, then, is really Dirk in Dallas? Nelson considered for a second: "Dirk has changed Dallas, economically and culturally. The mentality. He deserves a statue, very simple. "Donnie Nelson is serious for a moment. "Several," he says, "Dirk earned several monuments."

As we enter the cabin, Nelson tells me to sit down on Dirks place on Dirk's huge leather chair, between Dirks socks and shoes. He takes his shirt with the bracket 41, and handed it to me solemnly. It's the jersey that will take Dirk tonight. Dirk Nowitzki jersey, I think, surprised by my own solemnity.

Afternoon then Holger Geschwindner at Starbucks: mad professor, genius in flannel shirt, puzzling cross head, Nowitzki's discoverer, mentor, friend, and - if such a thing exists - its creator. Before him an empty coffee cup. The game tonight seems not to make him nervous. He was here to correct Dirks throw when necessary. For years, they use their rehearsed character, "throw up" and "fingers apart." He is here to be in his seat when Dirk needs him.

If you talk with Holger Geschwindner, one suspects, why Nowitzki has been playing for so long at the highest level. One suspects it, but you do not know. He took the young Dirk under his wing and developed a seven-step plan for the creation of what Dirk is today. Geschwindners method is a comprehensive set of math, psychology, education, discipline and plausible absurdity. Geschwindner was the captain of the Olympic team in 1972, studied physics and mathematics, and lives in a castle near Bamberg.

In conversation, he sometimes works on his computer. The screen then moves a stick figure with Dirk Nowitzki's exact body shape. The angle and curve calculations show how the ideal litter looks. It's about throwing the angle at which Nowitzki needs so he hits even when he makes mistakes. Geschwindner talks about basketball than jazz, Till Bronner in the gym, by Faulkner and frog jumps. Sometimes keeps Geschwindner midway in conversation, looks into space and enrolled a thought in his notebook.

Geschwindner challenges you and wants to be challenged. He is not sure whether one can write adequately about Nowitzki. Whether there are already appropriate words for what Dirk has done for years. One must develop as a separate language. Dirk Geschwindner compares with a mountaineer and his physical and mental requirements are not sufficient to detect the conventional phrases. "If you were on a six-thousand times, you know what holds the brain, 'he says. "It's difficult to describe. Dirk located for years at very high altitudes. Anyone who has such experiences, which often lack the words, and vice versa: Words without experience are usually not enough. "

I look around. The scenery is amazing and surreal, cameras on the field, all six levels plus press and celebrity speakers are sold out, made-up necklines, the Star-Spangled Banner , then the two-minute warning. Dallas is all in. against short the jump ball look I floating around Paris green polo shirt between the players. The Mavericks play to save the season and honor, and he is taking pictures up close.

Today everything is about Dirk. The hall wearing blue, it swings blue towels. She whispered when he gets the ball, she yells when he is fouled. The Mavericks isolate him and give him the ball, and he will be the responsibility. He can hide, that the world is watching him. He delivers a really good game. At the beginning of the last quarter, the Mavericks lead with thirteen points, 81:68, but then break the dams. Oklahoma gets to point to point, and just before the end, they take the lead. The hall looks shocked. Dirk scored as half a minute before the end, as his free throw points 33 and 34, as the announcer for the last »Dööörk" calls down the hall and the clock tapers continuously on the end of the season, it is still and silent. It's not enough, Dallas is out.

On the way into the cabin again Dirks pose: arms raised, as if he needed to recover from the shock. The press follows the players in the cabin, and there's an awkward silence. No pictures, no autograph requests. The players come one after another out of the shower, the press pack and makes it encircles their dismal questions. The players wear towels with elastic around the waist of her jersey number, the crowd is driving from one to another through the cabin. When Dirk out of the shower comes a stooping hero bites to the pack. All cameras and microphones on Dirk, you can not see him, but his towel flies and lands in the dirty laundry trough in the mid cabin.

In the morning, the last meetings before the summer break. The Mavericks have lost the most important game of the year. Coaches, managers and players compete one last time in front of the press, there is sadness in the air. Nowitzki replies politely, but a few urgent questions sound as if he could change the situation. Criticism is. Then work up the stairs Dirk Nowitzki, a sad savior in T-shirt and flip-flops. The journalists to see him, "here goes another year of Dirk," says one.

Up close, one can not distinguish relief and exhaustion in his face. Dirk Nowitzki is sitting in the small kitchen of the Mavericks and talking, now he has time. Last night, he has not played basketball on a world level, now is summer. Shortly, he sighs, the journalists' questions after his knees, his age, the failure, his boots after echo. "I've been at it long enough," he says. "Some of them have to go down to cook, because I give no material." Someone brings water, we change into German. Nobody listens. What he had done last night, I ask. "Last night, I dragged my fast food," he says. He smiles. During the season, he does not eat red meat, drink alcohol, stick to fish and chicken. "Normally we would have gone away. But that was yesterday so quickly and abruptly, I just was not able to see even more people. So burger, fries and milkshake. then I have not seen the other game, Spurs against Utah. "

Dirk Nowitzki makes pauses, his answers are honest, but he is always aware of what he has to say and does what anecdote in which questioners. He says, "interviews and photo shoots and advertising shoots are now my favorite things". And: "If I go into a restaurant and all applaud me that's still embarrassing," We talk about his contradictions, Texas and Würzburg, its new. and his old world, where many things are still the same again, "there is still the Edeka and a tanning salon." He actually still lives with his parents until after the championship they have remodeled the bathroom, so he was now bending down while brushing your teeth need. We talk and talk, and there comes the press agent and gets him to the next appointment. In the background you can hear brawls his teammates, you'll have left beer.

Nowitzki's important to understand, you have to draw wide circles. The end of August I met Wolf Lepenies, sociologists, historians and peace prize winner of the German Book Trade. Berlin is half as hot as Dallas, but the windows of the Institute for Advanced Study in Grunewald are wide open. Behind the villa there is a basketball hoop.

Lepenies, born 41, has played as a young man for Red-White Koblenz, points record points 48th How to read and understand basketball really is, it over-the anthropologist Clifford Geertz has taught at the Games of the Princeton Tigers. He has admired in New York and the Bill Bradley '72 team the Knicks, Willis Reed, Earl Monroe and Walt Frazier.

Wolf Lepenies therefore knows what he is talking about when he talks about basketball. He's a smart, enthusiastic man, we get directly into enthusiastic shoptalk. Lepenies recounts how he and Nowitzki Geschwindner once watched in a pub, 75 minutes litters without ceasing, impressive, very best schematics! "Geschwindner is the greatest sense of crazy, I am impressed by his thinking Maximum ago," he says. "Where one of us from the average ago thinks the two are merciless. Seven goals in ten tosses means for them: three missed shots. They want ten hits. "

The championship Lepenies tracked on the computer at night, the last game he has even woken up just before the end his wife - that I need to see them easily. Then he wrote about Nowitzki. For Lepenies he is far more than a star, "Nowitzki has" size, he says that is something fundamentally different. Lepenies brings Pierre Bourdieu in attack. Nowitzki had an impressive cultural and social capital, he sees him in a series of Fritz Walter, Max Schmeling, Uwe Seeler and Franz Beckenbauer. Let us mourn their losses, their victories we perceive as justice.

The talk of Nowitzki's size drives to his earthiness, with concepts such as honesty, staging and authenticity - and suddenly we analyze Nowitzki's wedding photo as if it were Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Wedding, the cut of the suit, the discreet jewelery of the bride. "Maybe it is now too far from Nowitzki," says Wolf Lepenies and laughs, "but this is not a celebrity picture, it's not just style. One senses a core on which can not be touched. This is vague, but there is something that is 'right'. Louder. Something like this is rare: integrity "Lepenies looks out the window at the basketball hoop.. He reflects, he smiles, he returns to the topic. "Dirk Nowitzki" says Lepenies, "is one of our great sports stories."

In early September I rage again in a hall, this time driving Nowitzki. We are on the way to training, the morning at nine, the distance from the home of his parents in the training hall Rattelsdorf he knows in his sleep, he goes for more than half his life. "For eighteen years we do it now," he says, for eighteen years, he travels from Würzburg to Rattelsdorf, A7, A70. Here he is on his hands ran through the hall, jumping on boxes and down, two, two and a half hours straight. "We used to train like the old Russian." Now everything is metered and more routine. He had learned the lessons from last year and through the summer training, "little run," he was to keep the tension. "Even if I pause, I can not go down to zero." He noticed his age, he says. "They paid for it."

Dirk sorted his summer. He counts down to the knuckles of his hand, which month how many days had he laughs, remembering the last few months seems to please him. Since we met a lot has happened. First Dallas because his wife had to work in the gallery. A week after leaving, he was back in the weight room. Beginning of July celebration in Kenya. Wedding in Dallas. Festival in the Caribbean. Commercial spot on Mallorca. New visa. Stay in Würzburg. "Stuff watched Wimbledon," he says, referring to not think he has turned on the TV.

Kenya was great, says Nowitzki. He had touched his phone rarely, the final break-up of his champion team he had noticed therefore only accidentally. Only when reception had. Nowitzki briefly increased to sneak sometimes English chunks in his German, but he still makes the effort to correct it: Reception! Upon receipt he has learned that his playmaker Jason Kidd, Jason Terry and his aide his best friend Brian Cardinal will not come back. But after fourteen years in the league, he seems to see things soberly. Last season is last season, now he's training for the next year. Now everything is back from the beginning. When he talks about sports, Nowitzki sometimes sounds like a machine. He moves quickly and quietly, the new car smell, the track is old.

Outside the windows, it will fall, we rush between rows of poplars and Gladiolenfeldern along a touch of gold is above the hills. Dirk speaks of the young British art, which shows his wife and he sometimes does not understand about flying, it was like bus driver, of the celebrations of the summer. We briefly mention. Now it was time to ask the specific questions that I have concocted me, I think, but I let the opportunity pass by. I remain passenger, we have a good time. "We got married during the Olympics," said Dirk, "we missed Bolt and basketball."

Just past the sign Rattelsdorf turns off Nowitzki and parked in front of a gymnasium, as they are everywhere in Germany. Now this morning the parking lot is almost empty, a couple of bikes, cars, a single woman with a dog and cigarette us nods. No cameras, no. "I did this summer, nearly three months had no ball in hand," says Dirk and takes a completely worn leather ball out of the trunk. "That part is eleven years old, I have trained every summer since 2001 with it."


When we entered the field, Geschwindner is already there. Plastic floor, no floor. He trains a few twelve-and thirteen-year, two fathers to see. The guys just turn the pirouettes, do exactly the lunges, swirl the ball well around her body, as it is known by Nowitzki. For some, this looks like tripping, in others it is a dance. »Wrap 'cries Geschwindner," internal rotation, "the beginnings of a language that he and Nowitzki talking for years. The guys try to ignore Dirk when he laces up his shoes, but when he steps with spindly enters the pitch and throw slow starts, it becomes quiet in the hall. The boys to see him, we see her thoughts racing. I note the word "" reverent. Nowitzki throws and throws and take the first 21 shots. We all count it.

If Nowitzki and Geschwindner train, there is silence. The two have completed these routes and exercises in recent years, often decades, almost no words are necessary. A racehorse and his trainer. Dirk throws, Holger fits. Holger nods, Dirk understands. We observe a ritual, the sound of the old basketball is a mantra, swish, swish, again and again. Dirk gets faster and faster, jumps higher and hits better, the concentration fills the hall.

None of us has ever been so good, and none of us will ever be.

The truth about Dirk Nowitzki is in his trunk: the age-old basketball, millions thrown and dribbled, almost black with sweat and dust Hall. If you have this ball in your hands, you realize why Dirk Nowitzki has become such an incredibly good basketball player.

Dirk Nowitzki has everything that other players tempted to quit, to stagnation: money, fame, awards. Interviews, interviews, interviews. "But these things I have never" interested, he says, and when you see him train, believe him. It is believed the story of the humble superstar, you believe in earthiness, of concentration, we believe in the power of normality, even in justice. The guys at the gym want to be like him. "I always wanted to be basketball players," he says, "one of the best."

Probably I need nothing new about Dirk Nowitzki saying he is like us. Only much, much better.

[sbibi]

Double post. My apologies... 2+ years later :P

[twelli]

I like the part about his 11 year old basketball. Can't imagine that other superstars in the NBA keep and practice with a ball that old.

[GermanDunk]

Dirks older brother playing golf ( amazing haircut )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7iibc9uJjY

[GermanDunk]

Dirks older brother playing golf ( amazing haircut )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7iibc9uJjY

[twelli]

yawn, can we start the season already?

[thurst0509]

http://www.mavsfastbreak.com/2012/10...dirk-part-one/

Great article BG! But more than that, I hate you and want your life.

[BGMaverick9]

Originally Posted by thurst0509

http://www.mavsfastbreak.com/2012/10...dirk-part-one/

Great article BG! But more than that, I hate you and want your life.

I was just about to post the link, now that I'm off work. Thanks for posting it here, and glad you liked it. I didn't know how it was going to come across.

[markus1234]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLZag...1&feature=plcp

[nowhereman]

At :45 is my favorite Dirk Nowitzki offensive move of all time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKPQxgUt0o0

[vinylstar]

If this board is around in 20 years, this thread will be on the first page of threads.

[iella]

From Twitterland, a picture of Dirk playing with his wedding ring (and wearing a Nike FuelBand, which is cool because that's what I'm working on at work right now...)

[markus1234]

Dirk, Detlef, Peja

[GermanDunk]

Per 5:35 pm news, Hamburger Abendblatt announces, the Dirk has landed in Berlin.

[sefant77]

I think its more being annoyed because he isnt used to it

And Kaman took the Janitors place, poor boy