Dirk’s statue: tribute to the Big German’s impact on NBA and beyond

When people see the new statue of Dirk Nowitzki unveiled Sunday on the plaza in the shadows of the house he built, they will instantly think of the 2011 championship.

And the 2007 MVP trophy. And his impending hall of fame call, which will come in 2023 when he is eligible, four seasons after his retirement.

But the greatest-hits assemblage of Nowitzki’s NBA career is far more than that. Some of it is well-documented. Other parts not so much. I mean, how many NBA players past or present have a beer named after them:

The Big German, courtesy of Rollertown Beerworks.

When you look back at an amazing all-in-Dallas career, it’s hard to boil the highlight reel, but we’ll give it a shot.

For instance, when you think back to some of Nowitzki’s most iconic moments, most people don’t think of him actually being in Germany.

But when the Mavericks played a preseason game in Berlin ahead of the 2012-13 season, it was a chance for his home country to celebrate a national treasure. The Mavericks had won the NBA title in 2011 and with the 2011-12 season shortened because of the lockout, the 2012-13 season represented a return to normalcy.

But when Nowitzki got to Berlin, while his heart was ready to be with his countrymen, his body wasn’t allowing it.

After the game, he admitted that his knee wasn’t right and he would have arthroscopic surgery less than two weeks later and miss the first third of the season.

He would score just eight points against Alba Berlin in front of his home folks.

No matter. It was a triumphant return, even if it was a painful one, too. No way he wasn’t going to suit up and give it a go in front of friends, families and a country that raised him.

And fans probably won’t circle the 2001-02 season as a turning point in Nowitzki’s life. But it was certainly that in the eyes of Chauncey Billups.

Now coach of Portland, Billups was a young point guard for the Minnesota Timberwolves that season. The Mavericks, seeded fourth, played the fifth-seeded Wolves in the first round of the playoffs.

Billups remembers feeling pretty good about the power-forward matchup in that series, since Kevin Garnett was widely considered as one of the best of all time by then.

“I played against (Nowitzki) a ton and twice in the playoffs,” Billups said. “Once when I was really young and I was playing with Minnesota. KG obviously was the guy. We were clearly outmatched in the series team-wise. But I really thought that KG was the best four-man in the league. And I thought he was going to really lock Dirk down.

“And I left that series with so much respect for this dude. I think he averaged 30 and 15 on us. And we tried everything. KG was talking as much stuff as he could. We tried everything. And it was just like, this dude is different. He’s just different.”

Actually, Nowitzki averaged 33.3 points and 15.7 rebounds as the Mavericks swept that series 3-0.

Billups would get a little payback in 2009 with Denver when the Nuggets beat the Mavericks in the Western Conference semifinals 4-1, but it didn’t change his opinion of Nowitzki.

“He was just unstoppable, so incredible,” Billups said.

The staff members at Children’s Medical Center Dallas feel the same way.

The people doing so much good for sick kids found out just how generous Nowitzki is with his time and treasure when he would visit the hospital ahead of the Christmas holiday.

Santa Dirk, complete with the floppy Kris Kringle hat.

Nowitzki would visit 20 or so kids and had his elves behind him pulling a bin of presents. For years, it was Nowitzki’s greatest achievement that very few people knew about.

But the kids knew. And so did the nurses and doctors and parents of so many struggling youngsters.

Santa Dirk deserves to be in the hall of fame, too.

Of course, not everybody has such pleasant memories of Dirk. In September, Manu Ginobili went into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, a year ahead of Dirk, who provided Ginobili and San Antonio fans with one of the worst moments in that proud franchise’s history.

It was the 2006 Western Conference semifinals and in Game 7, the unthinkable happened. With San Antonio on its home court and ahead by three points, Nowitzki wheeled past Bruce Bowen and got to the rim.

Ginobili instinctively came from the weak side and tried to block Nowitzki, instead catching him on the wrist as the ball crept into the net.

The three-point play tied it, the Mavericks won in overtime and would eventually reach the NBA finals.

It was a moment that Ginobili said stuck with him all summer and drove him relentlessly. He would end up winning the title the next season and four times in his amazing career.

But on one magical play, Nowitzki got him.

There are a million other moments that stand in time. But there was also the personal side of Dirk, like sitting at the Karisma Cantina in Mexico City, having beverages with Steve Nash and some media members before a game south of the border.

He was the best in our group at communicating with the locals.

Or how Nowitzki would stay after a practice on the road in Washington, alone with one other member of the basketball staff, getting up shots long after the team had bussed back to the hotel.

It was there that Nowitzki, perhaps cognizant that a reporter would take the time to spend an extra hour or so waiting for a quick interview, divulged that the time had come in his career to take less money at the next contract negotiation.

It was time, he said, to give back and make sure there was enough money to go around to field a team worthy of a championship.

It took a couple years, but it worked.

So now, Nowitzki will have a sculpture to last as long as any of us and beyond, a fine place for fans and pigeons to gather and relive the memories. It will no doubt be a step-back fadeaway vision. Nothing else would make sense. Sort of like nothing but a splay-legged, one-handed jamming Michael Jordan would be right in Chicago.

We could make jokes about how a defensive crouch might have been the second choice. Or how the statue moves only slightly slower than Dirk did at the end of his career.

But this is all about the great memories of Nowitzki that mostly came on the court. But so many more.

It’s a fitting tribute to a rare icon, one who left so many lasting impressions and now will have one of his own in front of American Airlines Center.

Twitter: @ESefko