By: Marselis Davis
Dirk Nowitzki is widely regarded as the greatest player in the Mavericks history. In fact, Nowitzki is generally known as one of the greatest power forwards of all time. Throughout his 21-year long career, the European Hall-of-Famer has built up a long and impressive résumé of accomplishments. Here’s a quick ranking of the five greatest of those accomplishments.
On December 2, 2004, the Dallas Mavericks faced off against the Houston Rockets. In the game, Nowitzki led the Mavericks to an overtime victory by scoring a career-high 53 points to outduel the Rockets’ Tracy Mcgrady, who scored 48 points. Alongside his incredible scoring, Nowitzki also grabbed 16 rebounds to go with it. This was probably the greatest game of Nowitzki’s career.
In 2007, Nowitzki was named the MVP of the league. This was after an incredible season in which he averaged 24.6 points and joined the rare 50-40-90 club. On top of that, he led the Mavericks to the most wins in their franchise history, with 67 wins.
Unfortunately, the Mavericks infamously lost in the First Round to the eighth-seeded Warriors. However, this does not mean that Nowitzki’s regular wasn’t incredibly impressive nonetheless.
Nowitzki is generally considered to be the greatest shooting big man of all time. He sits at 16th all time in three point makes with an impressive 38% three point percentage. As mentioned earlier, he also joined the 50-40-90 club in 2007, a club for the most elite shooters in a season. He even holds the records for the most consecutive free throws made in a playoff game, with 24 straight free throws.
Nowitzki is credited as having revolutionized the capabilities of a big man by showing how unstoppable they can be with good outside shooting. Nowitzki’s one-legged fadeaway was his signature move and it became known as one of the most unguardable shots in NBA history. This shows the influential nature of Nowitzki’s legendary career.
Another major accomplishment of Nowitzki is that he retired with 31,560 career points. He is one of only seven players in the history of the league to score over 30,000 career points, joining legends like LeBron James, Michael Jordan, and Kobe Bryant. He ranks sixth all time in scoring, which is another testament to what a great shooter and scorer he was.
Without question, the 2011 championship run was the greatest accomplishment of Nowitzki’s career. Entering the 2011 playoffs, the Mavericks were not expected to win the title, nor make the Finals. The defending champion Lakers and the newly formed Heatles were much stronger favorites to win the title. However, the Nowitzki and the Mavericks surprised everyone by winning the title, and they went through a hard road to win it.
In the Conference Semifinals, the Mavericks shockingly swept Kobe Bryant’s Lakers, who were the one seed and favorites to win the title. Throughout the series, Nowitzki averaged 25 points per game on an incredible 57% field goal percentage. In the Conference Finals, Nowitzki faced off against a young Big Three of KD, Westbrook, and Harden and defeated them in five games. He averaged a spectacular 32.2 points per game and set the record for the most consecutive free throws made in a playoff game, going 24-24 at the line.
In the Finals, Nowitzki and the Mavericks pulled off one of the greatest upsets in sports history by defeating the Big Three Miami Heat in six games. Nowitzki won the Finals MVP with a great series in which he averaged 26 points and 9.7 rebounds, along with a game-winning layup in Game 2. Many consider this to be the most impressive championship run of all time. Nowitzki’s 2011 ring solidified him as an NBA legend and a top 25 player of all time.
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