Dirk Nowitzki details his basketball career in Germany, adjusting to life after Mavs

Former Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki recently joined The Mom Game podcast to discuss his basketball journey from Germany to Dallas and how he met his mentor Holger Geschwindner.

Being so used to a strict routine as a professional athlete for so long and then all of a sudden not playing, how has that transition gone for you after playing?

Dirk Nowitzki: I got to say, I adjusted really well. I was a little worried. I talked to some other athletes that had retired so I wanted to know what their thoughts were and if I had to do something special to get ready. And so I talked to Steve Nash, I talked to Michael Jordan a lot over the years, but I just got to say I was ready for it. The last two years were tough. I had a surgery on my ankle and so the last season I actually missed, what, 30 games? So I was struggling with my ankle, couldn’t move much. My last three, four months I didn’t really practice much anymore, I just sat there and watched and got ready for games. So it took a little bit of the fun away that I was having to compete at the highest level so the decision was pretty easy. My body made that decision for me, I think, mentally, I could have competed another year, but I was ready. I was ready to travel, I was ready to try new things, see the world, eat and drink whatever I wanted at whatever time I wanted. It was pretty regimented. I obviously had my routine and I always had to be disciplined, even in the summers when we did travel I’d have to find gyms and eat healthy and all that stuff, so I was looking forward to life. After 21 years, it was plenty and it’s been over three years now that I’ve been in retirement and it’s been a blur. It’s super fun and all sorts of things. We do travel a lot with our children so it’s been a lot of fun.

When you were a baby in Würzburg, Germany and you started playing basketball, did your dreams ever bring you this far?

Nowitzki: Well, not to Dallas, Texas, but I was definitely a huge NBA fan there. I started off playing tennis and handball, I didn’t start basketball until I was a little older, about 12, 13 and then I was all in. Once I got hooked with the sport I got up in the middle of the night to watch the Finals, watch the All-Star game, I was all in. There was a time where I knew every player on every roster, that’s how deep I was into it and it was always a dream but I never really thought one day I could actually play in this league. It was such a huge leap from Germany. Basically, I played second division there and then to the NBA? It wasn’t until I met Holger Geschwindner when I was about 15, 16, then we really started to work toward goals and getting better. And then when I was 16, 17 I started thinking maybe this could go somewhere, or at least play professionally somewhere in Europe or go to college and get a scholarship. So these things were all floating around but I wasn’t really sure what the ceiling was or where this was going to end up in. So I would say from the age 18, 19, 20, everything went so fast. Working hard, finishing high school, I went to the Army for 10 months– which was mandatory at the time, and that was a blast. I was traveling and working out with Holger every day and so a lot of things just game at me at a young age and I came over and I was 20.

Holger was always this figure that was around, but it was always clear how important he was to you, both professionally and personally. How did that relationship start?

Nowitzki: He was a good player back in the day. He was a 1972 Olympic captain for the German team in Munich in the Olympics. So he had a basketball background, of course, and he was still playing deep into his 40′s. And he was just traveling with his old team all the time and, allegedly, the story is, which I really don’t remember that much but he’s kept a journal since the last 40 years so I’m sure he can recollect things a little better than I can, but he always tells the story that they had a game in some gym outside of my hometown, somewhere on the road. I played and he had a game after me, with his older team, and he saw me running around there without really knowing what to do, but I had some good instincts and some decent skill level and could move for a tall guy. So he came up to me after and asked, “Who’s practicing with you?” And I was like, “Nobody, I’m just here with the team a couple times a week.” And then he was like, “I’d love to work with you.” And he had never done anything like this in the beginning, and I didn’t really know what it was, obviously. I didn’t watch the ‘72 Olympics, it was way before my time. So I brought that back to my parents, my mom knew who he was because my mom was a basketball player and so kind of left it alone for a couple months and for the next season, sure enough, there shows this old guy up in the gym with this thin coat that he probably still has and he was a part of our team and he started coaching the team a little bit. And he was weird, he had awkward techniques he was teaching, the way he taught was weird, the stuff he was saying was different than anything we had ever heard, but I saw an improvement immediately. We started about once a week, twice a week he would come to our practice in the evenings and he would always take one guy to the corner, they’d do some individual stuff and then he would rotate. He would work with somebody else, the other guy would go back to the team practice and so we did that for the first couple of years and everybody started shooting the ball better. And we really got along great, and so we decided to keep this going and go all in, basically, as soon as I finished high school. I mean, the guy taught me everything I know, on and off the floor, and he was a mentor, he was a father figure at times, he helped me through tough times in my career, he was always there for me. So I say it all the time, I’m not sure where basketball would have taken me if I wouldn’t have met him. If I ever would have made it to the NBA, I have no idea so I do owe him a lot.

What’s your relationship with Holger like now? Do you still talk all the time?

Nowitzki: Yeah, less. Obviously, now, I’m old, I have my own family and obviously my basketball career is over with. I see him every time I go to Germany, which is actually now it’s more often I go to Germany for sponsors, some UNICEF ambassador stuff, I still have my charities over there so I go every four to six weeks, I see him. I go way more now than I used to, so I enjoy it. My parents are still alive there, I see Holger, I see my sister, so yeah, I go all the time to Europe now, I enjoy it. And I see him and we talk about the old days and all sorts of stuff. He still helps me a little bit on some of the business stuff and decisions in Germany so he’ll always be a part of the team and a part of the crew.