Other than the street named after him, the statue, the No. 41 hanging in the rafters at American Airlines Center and, coming Saturday, his enshrinement in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Dirk Nowitzki is just like every other parent in the world.
He has a natural flair for embarrassing his kids.
Whether you are Joe the accountant or Dirk the legend, it’s a gift and the birthright of every adult who has children. Nowitzki’s are 10-year-old daughter Malaika, and sons Max, 8, and Morris, 6.
It’s his oldest that is at the age where dad is a cause for face-hiding.
“I don’t think they really understand what I’ve really done,” Nowitzki said Tuesday. “They always watched me toward the end of my career. All they know is: papa, you were so slow. So I have to go to Youtube and pull up some stuff from the early 2000s, but they’re not really having it.
“They’re still young. I think my daughter understands the most. She’s 10 now and she’s mostly embarrassed about being recognized when we travel. She goes: ‘Oh God, and she walks the other way.’ She’s a shy kid that just doesn’t like all the attention for the family.”
Nowitzki, his wife Jessica, the kids and an entourage of close friends and Mavericks’ officials will head to the Hall of Fame ceremonies this weekend. The actual induction ceremony is at Springfield, Mass., a few three-point buckets away from the hoop hall.
Nowitzki said during a 30-minute news conference with Dallas-area reporters that he has most of his enshrinement speech ready to go. He hopes to have parts of it committed to memory – he doesn’t want to leave out anybody who helped him along the way. But hopes to free-lance as much of it as possible.
He will have Steve Nash and Jason Kidd beside him on stage for the ceremony. They are his presenters. But another one will be missing – his first NBA coach, Don Nelson.
“I actually wanted three,” Nowitzki said. “I wanted Nellie there, as well. Unfortunately, he can’t make it. That left me with two. And the two I played with are still great friends of mine. That was a no-brainer.”
But it was Nelson who helped Nowitzki become the best-shooting big man in NBA history.
“(I) loved to face up, play on the perimeter rather than banging,” he said. “And, of course, Nellie helped. Nellie just saw the game different. Always has. He was a mismatch master. He wanted me to shoot, encouraged me to play my style.
“I do owe him a lot of how the whole thing started off. Those were the good ol’ days.”
Nowitzki then careened off into some memories of his 21 seasons in the NBA, every second of which was spent as a Maverick.
“My two biggest dreams were always to win an NBA championship and play in the Olympic Games one time,” he said. “So I got to achieve both of these dreams. It was a great ride in international ball, too.
“Carrying the flag in at the Beijing 2008 Olympics is still one of the best moments of my career and I’ll never forget for the rest of my life.”
And, of course, the 2011 championship will always be a highlight. But the title was made sweeter because of the tough times, he said, many of which he spent with Nash and Kidd.
“It means a lot that it worked out that way at the beginning,” Nowitzki said of his first season in Dallas. “When I got here, I had no idea. I wasn’t even sure I’d stay my whole rookie contract the way things were going in year one.
“And then, Mark (Cuban) buying the team the second year (was big). And him being my No. 1 supporter and of course us getting better and the city getting more and more excited about Mavs basketball because the ‘90s as we all know were a tough decade for Mavs’ fans.
“So the early 2000s, I always said those were some of the best times. We changed the reputation around here of Mavs’ basketball with Mark buying the team. We built a new arena. Those are some of the most fun years I had with Steve, Mike (Finley) and I getting better. People started recognizing us around town where my rookie year we’d go into a bar after a game and have a burger and nobody knew who we were. It was a fun transition for us.”
Of course, heartbreak in 2006, 2007, 2008 and several other seasons made life tougher for Nowitzki and the other Mavericks of that era.
However, one thing kept the 7-footer from Germany going.
“I wanted to finish my career here, make it work,” Nowitzki said. “But then there were disappointments, disappointments, disappointments. But I still always said, I want to make this work. I would love to bring a championship to this city.
“I really wasn’t a free agent until 2010 and I went to Mark and that meeting I will never forget. I went to Mark’s house and we sat there and shared emotions, shared stories and we both got emotional. I basically told him, I want to be here and you want me to be here, let’s get this done. And then we ended up staying and we won the championship in year one of that four-year contract. That was a special time. And once we had won the championship, I knew I was going to retire here.”
Chasing a ring at the end of his career would have been the only reason Nowitzki would have left Dallas. And when he had that treasured piece of bling, he knew he was a Maverick for life.
And since his retirement after the 2019 season, he has been able to be a father and spend more time with his family – people who sacrificed for his benefit along the way.
“It’s still a little surreal, but still amazing,” he said, looking back on his professional life. “Especially when I was fresh out and I had just retired and I moved around the city and people came up and said they appreciated me or what I’ve done. It might have gotten them through some tough times in their lives, just by playing a simple sport that of course meant a lot to me.
“Now I’m still traveling the world and people approach me all the time and are like: appreciate what you’ve done; you played your heart out for two decades. And that of course means a lot.
“The smaller kids don’t recognize me anymore. I’m out for four or five years, there are other guys that are hotter. But usually the parents still recognize me. The kids are like, who’s this big guy? The parents are like, don’t you know that’s Dirk Nowitzki.”
And when that happens, you can just see Malaika turning away to avoid the embarrassment.
Twitter: @ESefko
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