Dirk Nowitzki
Dirk Nowitzki
Dirk Werner Nowitzkiis a German professional basketball player for the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association. An alumnus of Röntgen Gymnasium and the DJK Würzburg basketball club, Nowitzki was chosen as the ninth pick in the 1998 NBA draft by the Milwaukee Bucks and immediately traded to the Mavericks, where he has played since. Listed at 7 ft 0 in, Nowitzki is considered one of the greatest power forwards in basketball history...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionAthlete
Date of Birth19 June 1978
CountryGermany
I never looked at basketball as work. I always enjoyed it as my hobby. I loved it. Once that love is gone, and I'm tired of working out every day and doing all the stuff to get me ready for games, and I'm tired of lifting and conditioning and doing all that other stuff around it, and I'd rather stay in bed, then it's time to go.
It's going to be a big game, a fun game. That's about all it is. But there's a big difference in being the first seed and the fourth seed. All we can do is go for it. Even if we should lose, there's a lot of basketball to be played.
I played all kinds of sports when I was young: tennis, handball, basketball, some soccer. I focused on basketball when I was 16 or 17 and then came to the U.S. when I was 20.
I wanted to avoid service, because I was on the road to becoming a professional basketball player.
Basketball gave me a lot, which is why I want to stay connected with this sport later on, maybe working with young people. But it would be more in the background. Being in the spotlight was never really my thing. I never wanted to be famous.
I thought basketball was a game for women. My mother played basketball, and so did my sister.
I always wanted to be a basketball player. Nothing more, nothing less.
I know, basketball is a dance. I didn't understand the significance of that type of training at first. I was supposed to read poems...
I take my sport damned seriously. Basketball is my life. There are other people who go into important games as if they were any other game. I'm a brooder and I spend a lot of time thinking about my opponent, about the things he can do and about what I have to do to win. I don't think I'll ever be able to change that.
We weren't good enough in the fourth quarter. You have to play for 48 minutes against a team like Phoenix. They made shots off of our mistakes. We turned the ball over and you can't do that.
We were really aggressive and we got really good looks. We played pretty decent defense and when we rebounded, we ran. In transition we usually get pretty good looks. We were in attack mode all game long.
We have to do something about our bad starts because it's not the first time it's happened to us all year. Maybe we should get up at 6 o'clock and run around the block.
They adjusted and double-teamed me. I've got to do a better job finding the open man. More than anything, we know now we need a little more consistency for longer stretches.
There was a lot of hacking going on.