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Dirk Werner Nowitzki (German pronunciation: [ˈdɪʁk ˈvɛʁnɐ noˈvɪtski]) (born June 19, 1978) is a German professional basketball player who plays for the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). An alumnus of Röntgen Gymnasium and DJK Würzburg basketball club, Nowitzki was drafted ninth overall by the Milwaukee Bucks in the 1998 NBA Draft, and was immediately traded to the Mavericks, where he has played ever since. Standing 7 ft 0 in (2.13 m), Nowitzki plays the power forward position but also has the mobility, size, and shooting ability to play the other frontcourt positions, center and small forward.

Nowitzki has led the Mavericks to eleven consecutive NBA Playoffs (2000–01 to 2010–11), including an NBA Finals appearance in 2006 and the franchise's first championship in 2011, making him one of only five players in NBA history to win the championship while being the only NBA All-Star on the team. He is a ten-time All-Star and eleven-time member of the All-NBA Teams, and is the first European-born player in NBA history to receive the NBA Most Valuable Player award.[1] He is the first Maverick ever to be voted into an All-NBA Team and also holds several all-time Mavericks franchise records.

Only Nowitzki and three other players have ever averaged more than 25 points and 10 rebounds in the NBA playoffs. Only Nowitzki and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar have managed four consecutive 30-point 15-rebound games in the playoffs. Additionally, Nowitzki is the only player in NBA history to get over 100 blocks and 150 three-pointers in a single season.

Nowitzki led the German national basketball team to a bronze medal in the 2002 FIBA World Championship and the silver medal in EuroBasket 2005, and was leading scorer and elected Most Valuable Player in both tournaments. Regarded as one of the best European players ever, Nowitzki has been a seven-time European Player of the Year, being named the Euroscar European Basketball Player of the Year by the Italian sports newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport for five years in a row, the Mister Europa European Player of the Year by the Italian sports magazine Superbasket in 2005, and the FIBA Europe Basketball Player of the Year the same year

Early years
Born in Würzburg, Germany, Nowitzki comes from a sports family: his mother Helga was a professional basketball player and his father Jörg-Werner was a handball player who represented Germany at the highest international level.[3] His older sister Silke, a local champion in track and field, also became a basketball player and now works for the NBA in International TV.[2][4] Nowitzki was a very tall child; most of the time he stood above his peers by a foot or more.[3] He initially played handball and tennis, but soon grew tired of being called a "freak" for his height and eventually turned to basketball. After joining the local DJK Würzburg, the 15-year-old attracted the attention of former German international basketball player Holger Geschwindner, who spotted his talent immediately and offered to coach him individually two to three times per week. After getting both the approval of Nowitzki and his parents, Geschwindner put his pupil through an unorthodox training scheme: he emphasized shooting and passing exercises, and shunned weight training and tactical drills, because he felt it was "unnecessary friction." Furthermore, Geschwindner encouraged Nowitzki to play a musical instrument and read literature to make him a more complete personality.

After a year, the coach was so impressed that he said to his pupil: "You must now decide whether you want to play against the best in the world or just stay a local hero in Germany. If you choose latter, we will stop training immediately, because nobody can prevent that anymore. But if you want to play against the best, we have to train on a daily basis." After pondering for two days, Nowitzki decided on the former. Geschwindner let him train seven days a week with DJK Würzburg players and future German internationals Robert Garrett, Marvin Willoughby and Demond Greene, and in the summer of 1994, the 16-year-old Nowitzki made the DJK squad.

DJK Würzburg (1994–98)
When Nowitzki joined the team, DJK played in the Second Bundesliga, South Division. His first trainer was Pit Stahl, who played the tall teenager as an outside-scoring forward rather than an inside-scoring center to utilise his shooting skills.[8] In the 1994–95 Second Bundesliga season, ambitious DJK finished as a disappointing sixth of 12 teams; the rookie Nowitzki was often benched and struggled with bad school grades, which forced him to study rather than work on his game.[9] In the next 1995–96 Second Bundesliga season, Nowitzki established himself as a starter next to Finnish star forward Martti Kuisma and soon became a regular double-digit scorer: after German national basketball coach Dirk Bauermann saw him score 24 points in a DJK game, he stated that "Dirk Nowitzki is the greatest German basketball talent of the last 10, maybe 15 years." DJK finished second in the South Division, but could not earn promotion after losing 86–62 in the deciding match versus BG Ludwigsburg: in that game, Nowitzki scored only eight points

In the 1996–97 Second Bundesliga season, the team's top scorer Kuisma left the team, and Holger Geschwindner replaced Pit Stahl as head coach. Filling Kuisma's void, Nowitzki averaged 19.4 points per game and led DJK again to second place after the regular season, but could not help his team gain promotion.[11] In the following 1997–98 Second Bundesliga season, Nowitzki finished his "Abitur" (German A-levels), but had to do his compulsory military service in the Bundeswehr (German Military) which lasted from September 1, 1997 to June 30, 1998;[2] Nowitzki described this period as "a tough time at first, we had no privileges and had to participate in all the drills... later [after finishing the tough "Grundausbildung," the most intensive initial part of the service] it was much more relaxed." Concerning basketball, the 18-year old, who had grown to 6 ft 11 in (2.11 m) tall, made progress, leading DJK to a 36:4 point total (in Germany, a victory gives 2:0 points and a loss 0:2) and ending as leading scorer with 28.2 points per game. In the promotion playoffs, DJK finally broke its hex, finishing at first place with 14:2 points and earning promotion; Nowitzki scored 26 points in the deciding 95–88 win against Freiburg and was voted "German Basketballer of the Year" by the German BASKET magazine.[

Abroad, Nowitzki's progress was noticed. In 1996, FC Barcelona Bàsquet wanted to sign him, but Nowitzki refused to move before finishing his German A-levels.[14] A year later, the teenager participated in the Nike "Hoop Heroes Tour," where he played against NBA stars like Charles Barkley and Scottie Pippen. In a 30-minute show match, Nowitzki outplayed Barkley and even dunked on him, causing the latter to exclaim: "The boy is a genius. If he wants to enter the NBA, he can call me."[15] On March 29, 1998, Nowitzki was chosen to play in the Nike Hoop Summit, one of the premier talent watches in U.S. men's basketball. In a match between the U.S. talents and the international talents, Nowitzki scored 33 points on 6-of-12 shooting, 14 rebounds and 3 steals for the internationals and outplayed future US NBA stars Rashard Lewis and Al Harrington. He impressed with a combination of quickness, ball handling, and shooting range, and from that moment a multitude of European and NBA clubs wanted to recruit him.