DIGGING DIRK
Raptors full of admiration ahead of likely final meeting with Nowitzki
C.J. Miles admits to some bias as a proud Dallas native, but he doesn’t think the greatest Mavericks player to ever lace them up, Dirk Nowitzki, gets his proper due.
“I mean he changed the position. (At the time, there was) nobody like him,” Miles told Postmedia in a chat after practice in downtown Dallas on Saturday afternoon.
“And now there’s a lot of guys who have grown and been able to kind of take his pathway and do some of the things he was doing, but, he’s incredible and I still think people don’t talk about the playoffs he had to win that championship, enough,” Miles said of the 2010-11 triumph over LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and the Miami Heat.
Finals MVP Nowitzki averaged 26 points and 9.7 rebounds, helping the Mavericks wipe away years of playoff disappointments with a longawaited championship.
“He was an animal. It was insane the way he played,” Miles said.
“And the way he has always played. He was just hard to guard. He shot the ball from behind his head at seven feet (making him nearly impossible to guard). It didn’t hit the rim.”
Nowitzki, now 40 and in his 21st season, has not definitively said he will retire at the end of the year, but he’s only averaging 10 minutes a game and has struggled. That means Sunday’s game could be the last time Miles and the other Raptors face the living legend.
Nowitzki has averaged 21.6 points and shot 43% from beyond the arc in 32 career meetings with Toronto. He has been playing nearly as long as the Raptors franchise has been in existence, joining the Mavericks just minutes after Vince Carter became a Raptor. Nowitzki owns just about every mark in the Mavericks’ record book and sits seventh in NBA history in points, closing in on Wilt Chamberlain, who he should pass before he’s done. Nowitzki also leads all big men and sits 11th in league history in made three-pointers.
It has been a heck of a run and Nowitzki, thanks to his resume and his welcoming demeanour is clearly revered by many current players.
You can sense that when talking to Danny Green or Miles about him.
“It was a hell of a time playing against the guy, watching him when I was a youngster and being able to play against him and being able to call him part of the fraternity,” Green told us on Saturday.
“Somebody I can speak to, say hello to, and he’ll acknowledge me with respect, that’s pretty cool.” “We had some good battles when I was in San Antonio,” Green said.
“Especially we had a playoff series against him. I had to guard him some in the post, it was just tough because he’s 7-foot, shooting over guys.”
Then, Green said with a laugh, “It’s hard to come up with a good Dirk memory. He was on the other side. The ones that were great for him were not great for us (Green and the San Antonio Spurs)."
Raptors head coach Nick Nurse recalled being stunned by his first glimpses of Nowitzki at the German’s coming out party, the 1998 Nike
Hoop Summit.
“Nobody knew who he was really,” Nurse said.
“It’s almost impossible now to be that age (and that good) and no one knows you now and it was like, ‘Oh My God’ and I just remember being there and everybody going crazy about this guy Dirk. It was pretty cool,” he said.
“It was over after the Hoop Summit. There was like 15 GMs trying to sign him somehow after the game and it was like, ‘Wait a minute, we have to draft him first.”
When Dallas nabbed him, Miles was a big Michael Finley fan, but quickly caught on to what Nowitzki could do.
Miles broke into the NBA in 2005-06, the year Nowitzki averaged what would be a career-high 26.6 points per game and led the Mavs all the way to the Finals and a crushing loss at the hand of Dwyane Wade and the Miami Heat.
Having skipped college to go straight to the NBA, Miles regrets that he was denied of fully getting to enjoy Nowitzki’s brilliance.
“It was crazy because I made the jump (straight from high school) it robbed me of being a fan of him for like the big years,” Miles said.
“He was ahead of his time,” Miles repeated, pointing to the fadeaway, one-legged shot Nowitzki perfected and has since seen copied by half of the league.
“It’s become like a staple. Guards do it. People practice it in the summertime now … I just think his competitive fire was something I loved about him too,” Miles said.
“You always saw that passion, that energy, that scowl. They didn’t call him Dirty for no reason. He was nasty, man. I mean he is. Obviously,
Father Time is undefeated, but there was nobody that was like him.”