Across 21 NBA seasons, Dirk Nowitzki became a superstar, a champion and an all-time legend, a glossy resume that belies the heartbreak and frustration he endured along the way—all those years as a solo star on teams with lackluster talent, flailing in the playoffs or failing to make them at all.
Yet Nowitzki stuck with the Mavericks through all the highs and lows, until his retirement in 2019. And he has a hard time relating to the NBA’s new wave of disgruntled superstars forcing trades at every turn.
“It's definitely new,” Nowitzki said on SI’s Crossover podcast. “We always felt like we the players didn't have enough power at the beginning of my career (in 1998), and the owners had all the power, could make all the moves. And now it’s almost shifting like a little bit too much. I think there should be like a happy medium. But now the players forcing themselves out, to me is not the way to go, either.”
The trend reached a peak last month, when James Harden (then of the Nets) and Ben Simmons (then of the Sixers) swapped places after each superstar demanded a trade. Harden forced the trade out of Brooklyn just 13 months after forcing Houston to trade him there. All told, there have been 11 forced trades by All-Stars in the last five years alone—including two each by Harden and Paul George.
The other disillusioned stars to force trades in the last five years are Kawhi Leonard, Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving, Jimmy Butler, Russell Westbrook and John Wall.
“I was old school,” Nowitzki said on the podcast. “I don't want to sit here and judge these guys that that are doing that. I think everybody has to know what's best for themselves, for their career, for their brand—you know, everybody has a brand now— and what's best for their family. For me, it was staying in Dallas. It worked out great there. And I've had my family there and I loved it and I grew into that community. So that's something that just worked for me. But of course, I get it. It's not for everybody.”
Nowitzki said he would have only considered leaving Dallas if he hadn’t won a title, which he finally did in 2011, in his 13th season. The Mavericks never won a playoff series in his last eight seasons.
“At the end of my career, I could have maybe tried somewhere else to get that ring,” Nowitzki said. “I think that would have been really the only reason for me to leave. But for me, Dallas was the place. The people have supported me from the beginning, even when things weren't going right for me in my first year.”
Also on the podcast, Nowitzki discussed his rivalry with Dwyane Wade, revolutionizing the game for 7-footers, his battles with Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan, his relationship with Luka Dončić and the new biography about his career, The Great Nowitzki.
For more, subscribe to The Crossover NBA Show wherever you find podcasts.
