Former Dallas Maverick Dirk Nowitzki leaves Wednesday to be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Dirk is one of five players being inducted this year.
"It feels super surreal," he says. "I'm excited but also a little anxious and nervous."
Former San Antonio Spur Tony Parker is also being inducted this weekend along with Pau Gasol, Gregg Popovich, and Dwayne Wade.
"I'm going in with an incredible class, with people I've known and competed against for a long, long time, so I'm looking forward to it," Nowitzki says.
Dirk says he had a hard time adjusting to life in Texas during his first season. He was born in Wurzburg, Germany and moved to the U.S. after the Mavericks drafted him with the 9th overall pick in 1998.
He says he had doubts about coming to America at first. He says he'd tell his younger self to keep giving everything he has to reach his goal.
"Really focus on what you can control," he says. "You can't control playing time and all that other stuff, but you can control how hard you work and the effort you put in."
Nowitzki credits Mark Cuban with helping develop a winner and says that started in the early 2000s.
"We changed the reputation around here of Mavs basketball," he says. "With Mark behind the team, we created that hype."
Dirk says he did not hear many offers before signing a four year contract in Dallas in 2010. He says he and Cuban talked about his plans and how they wanted to bring a championship to the city.
"Of course, once we won the championship, I knew I was going to retire here," Nowitzki says. "That would have been the only reason, at the end of my career, to go somewhere to maybe chase a ring, but since we had achieved that goal, I knew I wanted to retire here."
In 2011, the Mavs beat the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals four games to two. Nowitzki was named MVP of the series.
He says one reason the Mavs have been successful is their work to show people who live in North Texas they are a part of the team.
"The Mavs have always done a good job from the beginning, from when I got here, to say the community plays a big role," he says.
Dirk says he spent a couple months working on his Hall of Fame speech.
"I'm so thankful for these people who helped me along the way. It's more to me, on the biggest stage, giving thanks to all the people who were involved in my career," he says. "What was funny to reflect on was really a little bit of my childhood. When I speak about my parents and sister, I think I will get a little emotional, stuff they've done and put their lives on hold, drove me from tennis to handball to basketball."
Nowitzki retired in 2019. He is now a special advisor to the Dallas Mavericks.
Four years after retiring, he says kids no longer recognize him.
"The parents, they'll still recognize me, but the young kids are like, 'Who is the big guy?' The parents are like, 'Don't you know that's Dirk Nowitzki?!' The kids are like, 'No, I don't,'" Dirk says.
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