Had the good fortune and honor of watching The Rolling Stones and Sir Mick Jagger on Tuesday night at the Cotton Bowl.
While watching him and Keith Richards defy the laws of time and the toll it can take, I couldn’t help but think of one thing.
Dirk Nowitzki’s greatness.
I’m a big believer that we should try to see all entertainment icons once. I was lucky to see Nowitzki a lot more than once. Saw him as a young up-and-comer. Saw him in his prime. And saw him when Father Time was winning the battle.
Treasured every single one of those moments. It was a privilege to get to watch him work.
It’s the same with Jagger, of whom Nowitzki was a huge fan, by the way. For those of us who were at the Cotton Bowl on July 6, 1975, for the first time the Stones played there, Tuesday was a historic bookend moment.
Sort of like seeing Dirk as a timid rookie and walking off the American Airlines Center court for the final time with legends like Charles Barkley and Larry Bird visiting to pay homage to a great competitor and offer their sendoffs.
There are big differences between athletes and musicians, of course. Athletes’ skills decline with time. Musicians tend to get better with age. They make fewer mistakes on stage, even if voices get a little weaker. And physically, Jagger and Nowitzki might be equals.
To see Jagger at 78 (and still with precious little body fat) going up and down the catwalk stretching into the crowd at the Cotton Bowl, it almost was enough to make you want to put in a session on the treadmill.
Almost.
But what it confirmed is that greatness must be appreciated.
Anybody who saw Dirk struggle to move on the floor late in his career still knew he was the sort of talent that comes along only once in a generation. We prefer to remember the highlights like the 2011 championship as he hoisted the trophy above his head. And that one-legged fadeaway that lives on as a shadow on the AAC floor.
Jagger has cut down on his theatrics during shows. As the misty rain fell Tuesday, he said the runway he was on was slippery and would curtail his dance moves. And yet, he moved better than probably anybody else in the huge crowd that was within a decade or two of his age.
Sort of like Dirk did in his final seasons. The Big German couldn’t make a lot of his signature moves at the end, but everybody knew how well he did them for years and years.
It was the same with Michael Jordan. We prefer not to think of him in Washington. Or Hakeem Olajuwon in Toronto.
Thankfully, Nowitzki never left the Mavericks. Nor will he ever. And all the memories, even toward the end, are priceless.
The same can be said of Jagger and the Rolling Stones.
Twitter: @ESefko
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