Dirk Nowitzki arrived to the American Airlines Center on Tuesday to a raucous crowd of Mavericks personnel and arena staff chanting his name and recording his entrance on their phones.
The 40-year-old Dirk has played in 21 NBA seasons, and Tuesday night’s game could be the last game of his legendary NBA career.
The problem: Dirk has not said that he is retiring.
He’s been asked about it, and he said that he hasn’t made up his mind. But the way the Mavericks are treating their longtime franchise star, they really want Nowitzki to retire already.
It would have been one thing if Nowitzki was for sure retiring, and the Mavericks wanted to give him a meaningful sendoff in his final game. But that wasn’t what happened here.
What we saw was a Nowitzki, heading into the final game of his one-year contract, reporting to work. That sort of greeting might as well have said, “Retire now because we’re not re-signing you.”
It’s an awkward situation. But at the very least, Dirk has been a great sport about this all.
He said back in February about this de-facto retirement tour being put on for him around the league:
“The fans have shown me a lot of love already on the road, even though I obviously haven’t announced that this is going to be it,” Nowitzki said. “I want to see how my body feels the last couple of weeks. If I get to see any improvement, if it’s still fun, and I guess we’re going to make that decision later.”
I get that NBA teams don’t want to miss saying farewell to Dirk if he ultimately retires this summer, but what if he comes back? Are these same teams going to roll out the red carpet all over again or is it a one-time deal? Will a team even want to have Dirk on roster for anything besides leadership? He’s putting up abysmal numbers in 2018-19 with career lows in points and minutes.
In that sense, the Mavericks want Dirk’s run to end on a positive note: Retire now, so we don’t have to risk a sour divorce. But at least wait for Dirk to make the call himself.
