The Dallas Mavericks could hardly have had a better passing of the torch moment than Dirk Nowitzki’s final season, aligning with Luka Doncic‘s rookie year. Looking back now, it’s easy to talk about the Slovenian as a legitimate successor to the German, but at the time, nobody could have known just how good Doncic would actually become.
That’s why Dirk was there because even though it was already his 21st season, with injuries and age catching up, he still served as the perfect example of what it takes to be the leader of a franchise like Dallas. Although Dirk admitted in later interviews that he probably should have retired a season earlier, he stayed and passed on his knowledge to Luka, something Luka himself acknowledged in an interview with WSJ. Style.
“Professionalism. How professional he was with everything, even in his 21st season. He had the whole routine every day. Start this that time, he would start at that time, so just the routine, it was unbelievable to see,” Doncic recalled.
Dirk stuck to routines for over 20 years
Nowitzki was famously rigid with his routines.
For example, he always warmed up about 35 minutes for a game, a little longer than the rest of the league, as he explained in an interview with the Dallas News.
He also said that before every game, he would practice unusual shots because he knew there would be situations where a play broke down and he’d have to rely on his individual skills to make something happen.
Throughout his career, he was also very rigid with stretching before and after games. Interestingly, he even used techniques like muscle electrostimulation on his legs to activate fast-twitch fibers without putting stress on the joints.
Every little detail, like specific shooting drills, proper nutrition and preventive exercises, might seem like nothing to some and most athletes will tell you that repeating them over long periods is extremely boring.
But Dirk stuck to them for over 20 years, constantly refreshing his approach with sports medicine developments to preserve his body, which ultimately allowed him to play 21 seasons. None of that would have been possible without competition, as he revealed in an interview when asked how he stayed motivated.
“I always had to find ways to motivate myself. In the summer, every day the same routine, six times, seven times a week,” Nowitzki recalled via Mavs.com in 2020. “There were obviously times where I wasn’t always motivated, but I always found a way whether you know, I’m laying in bed in the morning and I don’t want to get up and I’m saying to myself, ‘Hey, Kevin Garnett is not laying in the bed right now sleeping and Tim Duncan ain’t laying in the bed sleeping, so get your butt up and go to practice.'”
“Once I get there and once the routine starts, then, of course, I’m having fun. Sometimes it was just, ‘Oh, get over the hump, get up, and get going.’ But [I] always try and find little ways to motivate myself,” Nowitzki added.
Dirk never allowed competition to surpass him
And that’s exactly what places Dirk in the pantheon of the greatest to ever do it – he never allowed competition to surpass him. Others might have had better athleticism or more talent, but his routine never let him fall out of the lane that kept him at the top.
The fact that even at the end, when he probably knew in his mind that it was time and could have relaxed, he still refused to hand the franchise over to Doncic without teaching him the real values, how important it is to have a routine, to stay at the top and to learn discipline.