The Great Nowitzki: Basketball and the Meaning of Life
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
A journey into the mindset of a historic basketball superstar, and the importance of his landmark career.
The seven-foot Dirk Nowitzki is one of the greatest players in basketball history. The Dallas Maverick’s legend revolutionized the sport, redefining the role of the big man in the modern game. Dirk moved differently: flexible and fast, confident and in control. He thought differently, too. On the court, his shots were masterful—none more venerated than his signature one-legged flamingo fadeaway, a move that lives on in the repertoire of today’s most skilled NBA players.
How did this lanky kid from the German suburbs become an all-time top ten scorer and NBA champion? How can a superstar stay so humble? Award-winning novelist and sportswriter Thomas Pletzinger spent over seven years traveling with Nowitzki. He witnessed Dirk’s summer workouts, involving fingertip pushups and the study of the physics, and spent days discussing literature and philosophy with Holger Geschwindner, Dirk’s enigmatic mentor and coach. Watching Nowitzki in empty gyms and in packed arenas with 30,000 fans, Pletzinger began to understand how Dirk and Holger’s philosophical insights on performance, creativity, and freedom enabled his success and longevity.
The Great Nowitzki tells Dirk’s dramatic story like never before. Pletzinger describes Dirk’s youth in small-town Germany, follows the steep learning curve of Dirk’s early seasons, the devastating Finals loss to the Miami Heat, and the triumphant championship five years later. Traveling with Dirk in his final seasons, Pletzinger immerses himself in the community of people impacted by Nowitzki’s game, interviewing everyone from average fans in Dallas and security guards at the arena to front office executives and Hall of Fame teammates, who reflect on what Dirk’s career means to the next generation of ballplayers. And to the game itself.
A masterpiece of sports writing that reads like a novel, The Great Nowitzki brims with a fan’s passion. Pletzinger shows how strongly basketball influences our imagination and the extraordinary journey an icon like Dirk Nowitzki must take to reach the pinnacle of the game.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With the intensity and focus of a point guard, sportswriter and novelist Pletzinger (Funeral for a Dog) chronicles the career of 14-time All-Star basketball pro Dirk Nowitzki, "one of the best players in American sports." Drawing on interviews with Nowitzki's family, friends, and former teammates, Pletzinger traces his subject's story, from his youth as "a scrawny kid" in Germany to his remarkable 21 years playing for the Dallas Mavericks. In 1993, upon meeting the then-16-year-old, German former pro basketball player Holger Geschwinder recalls noticing how Nowitzki, at a mere six feet, eight inches, ran circles around the taller players: "The game like water for him." (Geschwinder became Nowitzki's mentor and went on to accompany him throughout his career with the Mavericks after he was drafted in 1998.) As Pletzinger offers nimble recaps of Nowitzki's games—including the Mavericks' 2011 world championship—the basketball star emerges as a stoic and philosophical player devoted to the game ("Home crowds loved Nowitzki; opposing fans feared him"). What sets this account apart from other sports biographies, though, is Pletzinger's visceral love for his subject: "His triumphs made me happy, his failures seemed excusable. Somehow, his victories were my own." This is sure to be a slam dunk with hoops fans.