DALLAS _ The date was Feb. 5, 1999. The place was Seattle. It was Dirk Nowitzki's first game as a member of the Dallas Mavericks.
The game, which came during an NBA lockout season, took on a different flavor of hype because it pitted two native sons from Germany _ Seattle's Detlef Schrempf and the Mavericks' Nowitzki _ going against each other.
Schrempf was entering his 14th season, while Nowitzki was in his first and had been touted by Mavericks coach Don Nelson as the player who would win the 1998-99 season's rookie of the year award. But after the SuperSonics won 92-86 in overtime, it was clear that Nowitzki wasn't ready for prime time.
Nowitzki finished the game with two points, no rebounds and four assists, and was 0 of 5 from the field. In the locker room at the Key Center afterward, he also looked like he'd seen a ghost.
"I still remember it was one of the worst games I've ever played," said Nowitzki, now 38 years old. "It was tough, and there was all this German media there.
"We'd never had media in the locker room (in Germany), so I'm getting undressed and all of a sudden there's people standing there looking at you. It was bizarre."
So bizarre that Mark Cuban, a Mavericks season ticker holder at the time who eventually bought the franchise on Jan. 4, 2000, remembers the innate struggles Nowitzki endured earlier in his career.
"Honestly, before I bought the team when I started watching him and paying attention, I thought he was just another big white guy from Europe that (Don Nelson) brought in," Cuban said. "And then you start watching him and you realized he was something special."
But before becoming a "special" part of the NBA fabric, at least Nowitzki _ in his first NBA game _ was afforded an opportunity to hob-knob with Schrempf.
"We took a picture at the middle circle with Detlef before the game," Nowitzki said. "I got to meet him, I got to meet his family after the game, and he was really nice to me.
"But I was in awe _ it was too much. But looking back at it now it was a great memory, but it was one of the worst games I've ever played."
