“I might have looked to other teams” – Dirk Nowitzki thinks he would’ve left Dallas if he lost the 2011 Finals originally appeared on Basketball Network.
By the time Dirk Nowitzki reached his thirties, he had carried more heartbreak than most players ever see. The legendary German had lived through the 2006 collapse, shouldered the shame of a one-seed losing to an eight and endured years of questions about whether a jump-shooting big man could ever lead a team to a title.
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Dirk stayed silent through it all. Never pointed fingers, never stirred anything up publicly, never played the what-if game. But for the first time, he once opened the door to something he had never said before.
“If we hadn’t won the Championship in 2011, I might have looked to other teams near the end of my career,” Nowitzki, who retired after the 2018-19 season, said in 2022. “Luckily, it didn’t come to that.”
He said it plainly. No need for spin, no need for drama. Just an honest truth from someone who had given everything to one franchise and nearly walked away with nothing to show for it.
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Everything hinged on 2011
Before that championship run, there weren’t many reasons to stay. Nowitzki had given Dallas over a decade of elite basketball, but the postseason shortcomings kept piling up.
He had played through rosters that weren’t good enough, through front office swings that didn’t connect and through years of carrying a franchise that could never quite get over the hump. He had reached the Finals once in 2006, only to lose in six games. Five years later, the window was nearly shut.
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The Mavericks weren’t the favorites in 2011. They weren’t built like a traditional champion. Jason Kidd was 38. Tyson Chandler was a rental. Jason Terry and Shawn Marion had seen their primes come and go. But somehow, that group put it together when it mattered.
They swept the Lakers. They came back from a 15-point deficit against Oklahoma City. They beat LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh in the Finals. Nowitzki was brilliant. He averaged 26 points through the series and hit clutch shot after clutch shot while playing through illness and pressure.
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If that run had ended differently, things might have looked very different in Dallas. Nowitzki never made public demands, but after years of giving everything to the organization, it’s clear now that one more failed run could have changed his thinking.
He was in his thirties. He had accomplished everything except the one thing that mattered. Another heartbreak might have been enough to push him elsewhere.
Legacy locked in place
Instead, the title cemented everything. There were no more questions about whether he could win as the best player on a championship team. There were no more debates about loyalty or legacy or whether he had stayed in Dallas too long.
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He had done it his way, and it had worked. After 2011, he didn’t need to chase anything anymore.
Nowitzki spent the rest of his career in Dallas, even as the roster fell off and playoff contention faded. He passed 30,000 career points, moved into sixth on the all-time scoring list and became the face of continuity in an era defined by movement.
Dirk’s saying this doesn’t change how people view his loyalty, but it shows that even players who seem immovable feel the weight of time and missed opportunities.
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Nowitzki stayed, and it paid off. That 2011 Finals run will always be acknowledged — even by today’s youngsters — as one of the toughest roads to a championship because it was during an era of big threes.
This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jul 30, 2025, where it first appeared.