A superstar in his sport, Nowitzki lacked only the championship to feel truly in place among the game's legends. Notification of another All-Star honor caused perhaps a flicker of a smile for Dirk, and then a return to work.
Nowitzki's training routine had become the stuff of legend -- often referenced but seldom explained. But to understand how Dirk became Dirk, it is imperative to know that this player in his 13th professional season still followed the same regimen he learned as a skinny German teenager. That his personal coach, Holger Geschwindner, has been there every step of the way since Nowitzki was 16 only adds to the mystery and intrigue.
A 2008 Time magazine story said of Geschwindner: "A former captain of the German national team and a physicist, he has developed a series of formulas that may reveal the optimum arc for jump shots, using a combination of player height, arm length and release point. 'Take differential and integral calculus. Make some derivations and create a curve,' he recently said. 'Everybody can do it.'"
Clearly, not everyone can do it. Through thousands of practice hours, Nowitzki has become one of the most amazing shooters in history. Before he was thought of as a complete player, he was regarded as an elite sniper. A decade later, as he has continued to hone his craft, even the game's greats marvel at Nowitzki's skills.
It all stems from Nowitzki's daily grinds in the gym. Not the mandatory team practices, but the voluntary, individual workouts he demands of himself. Despite having earned a fortune of $140 million and counting, Nowitzki's hunger to improve, sharpen and add to his skills has not diminished.
"It's hard to explain his routine, but it is the same thing every single time," said Mavericks equipment manager Al Whitley, one of Nowitzki's closest friends in the organization. "When Holger is in town, it's just those two in the gym and Holger rebounds the shots. Starting close, and working out further. The weirdest shots you have ever seen, [which] Holger incorporated to improve balance and footwork. One-footed shots. Left-footed shots. Left-handed shots. Left-handed foul- and 3-point shots. You have to see it to understand what is going on.
"It is so different than a North American workout. It is the same routine every time. It doesn't alter. It is keeping the fingers wide. It is all about how the ball comes off his fingers."
Over and over. Shot after shot. Swish after swish. Just watching the routine makes you tired.
"About 45 minutes to an hour, to where [Nowitzki] is dripping in sweat," Whitley said. "It just works on his footwork. And all of those shots you see, he has been practicing -- hard. Holger comes three or four times a year. And when he comes, he is here for a couple weeks to a month. And every day he is here, they come back at night and do the shooting routine in the gym. Holger was here every night in the playoffs, so they would come back every single night. It keeps [Nowitzki] sharp and he is more than locked in."
The methods might seem unorthodox, but Nowitzki has adhered to Geschwindner's plan even as each of his seasons ended in disappointment. Nowitzki has a deep faith in what got him here, and he would not abandon it. And while he has earned the respect and sometimes friendship of other NBA stars, Dirk isn't so immersed in their fraternity that he shares agents and summer vacations as some players do. Nowitzki is both a superstar and an iconoclast.
After the playoff loss to Golden State in 2007, Nowitzki and Geschwindner went on a five-week trek through the Australian outback, New Zealand and Tahiti to help clear the player's head. They slept in hostels, camped in the brush, dozed on the beach, enjoyed fine hotels, even slept in a car for a week. That was the only time in Nowitzki's career that he didn't spend the entire summer developing a new aspect of his game. But actually he did. The time for reflection gave Nowitzki a new skill: The mental ability to not beat himself up over what he couldn't control and to focus only on what he could. He couldn't control people's perceptions of him. He could only control his own effort, decisions and determination to climb that title mountain.
The summer of 2010, after the playoff loss to the Spurs, was spent honing a new weapon. Before starting his 13th season, Nowitzki and Geschwindner perfected what would become the go-to move in the forward's already loaded arsenal. It was a step-back, fall-away, left-footed shot that uses his right knee to ward off defenders. And, for a 7-footer with Nowitzki's high-arcing shooting touch, it makes guarding him virtually impossible.
"They work on things years in advance, to bring them out down the road," Whitley explained. "That one-foot, off-balance shot, it is an unguardable move. It is something he worked on for a long time that he has finally utilized this year more and more. It is just unguardable and it's something he finally feels really comfortable with now. You are just at his mercy.
"Holger is so calculated and his thought process is so advanced that he puts Dirk in isolation in every situation that he is going to see and puts him in a place to be successful. Because Dirk is so tall and his release is so high, he can get his shot off anytime he wants. And on one foot, leaning back, fadeaway for someone that big?"
The new move also came with a counterweight to keep defenders honest.
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