This article about Dirk Nowitzki's Game for a Young World Selection appeared on SPIEGEL ONLINE on March 29, 2018, exactly 20 years later. Because Nowitzki has now announced his resignation after an unprecedented career with the Dallas Mavericks, we present the text about his breakthrough here again.

It is one of the most important season games. DJK Würzburg is in March 1998 shortly before the rise in the first basketball league. A victory must come in the relegation against SSV Weissenfels. But by far the best player is missing without excuse. Where is Dirk Nowitzki?

He's on the other side of the world, not even his father, the 19-year-old has said something. Even he had no idea about the tour to Texas. Because everything has planned Holger Geschwindner, Dirk's mentor and individual trainer. "I'll go to him in the evening and say: Tomorrow morning we both fly to America," he says. Dirk did not want to abandon the team. His reaction: "What is this ?!" Then Geschwindner convinced him of the secret mission.

Geschwindner had initiated only Dirk's mother ("She was not for it, but she carried it along") and teammate Robert Garrett: "Otherwise the whole action could easily have been boycotted, so we had to do it under the coverlet." In no case, the Würzburg club leadership should ban the US trip - after all, it was about the rise. "That's where the really early morning came at 6 and picked up Dirk, of course we fell from every cloud", says father Jörg Nowitzki in the documentary "The perfect litter" laughing. "That was Geschwindner live."

"Perform once - but then correct"

The German duo dived deep into the "March Madness". March is the basketball month par excellence in the USA. When the college teams play their champion, the nation is thrilled. The Final Four - semi-finals and final - will take place in San Antonio in 1998. As part of the framework program, the best US high school players compete in the "Nike Hoop Summit" with a world selection, in front of talent scouts from the professional league NBA. And Dirk Nowitzki is in Texas.

"We did not want to go over the villages, but to play once - but then right," says Geschwindner. "It's the biggest chance to get noticed with a single game." Does Nowitzki have the potential for the world's best basketball league? At home in Germany, not all people trust him.

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28 pictures

Dirk Nowitzki: The big litter of the long, dry German

The fact that Nowitzki was even invited, he owes above all Geschwindner, who has negotiated with the organizers, worried plane tickets and developed a battle plan. The former international is a strategist with a penchant for the unconventional and pedagogical skills: straightforward, cranky, opinionated. Geschwindner first saw Dirk as a shy 16-year-old in Schweinfurt and offered to train with him. Dirk agreed.

It was the beginning of an extraordinary player-coaching relationship. Here is a young, 2.13 meter long rough diamond with a talent for movement and a special throwing sensation. There is an elderly man in a check shirt with a weakness for science, jazz and the perfect litter.

Dribbling to the live saxophone

Geschwindner has big plans. Some consider him a spinner, his training methods bizarre. So he lets his players dribble to the rhythm of the music, while a friend plays live saxophone in the hall. The players can do well with "Hotsch". "We never questioned Holger's decisions," says Robert Garrett, one of Würzburg's "young savages."

On March 29, 1998 Nowitzki is to play his most important game and is on the starting grid of the world team in San Antonio. The TV commentators draw comparisons with Detlef Schrempf - as until then only German could "Det the Threat" in the NBA foothold.

The game begins with two quick ball losses of the world selection, two dunkings of the Americans. The fast, athletic high school players seem superior. At the score of 10: 4 for the USA Nowitzki sets the first scent brand: On the right attack side he pulls past the opponent with two dribbles and climbs up to the dunking - which he misses. Foul.

A murmur goes through the arena: The scene gives an idea of ​​what is in this long German. Nowitzki's movements look as lithe as those of a much smaller player. That is noticeable. And now this "7-footer" pushes to the basket and also tries to punch the ball with force through the ring - this attitude impresses the Americans. There is still the prejudice that international players are too "soft" for the often club-hard US basketball.

Trainer Geschwindner had no access to the arena, not even a seat in the spectators. But George Raveling, his contact at Nike, put him a chair next to the player's bench. Perfect place for shouts. "The coach of the world selection was annoyed, 'Do not talk to the players!', I had to hear from him," says Geschwindner, laughing. His plan works. "Take the pill, pull it over and ram that thing up there, and if they hack you, you have to keep going. That was the motto. And so the number 15 of the world selection appears.

Nowitzki knows only one direction - to the basket. The US players are visibly overwhelmed with the mobile, unerring slapstick. Most opponents of this magnitude act rather slowly and physically under the ring. But this guy often shoots from the outside or pulls through with speed. So they foul Nowitzki in almost every action. But it does not help.

The big hit

Also on the free throw line Nowitzki impressed the NBA scouts. His throwing sensation is incredibly good. At the end of the game Nowitzki will have sunk 19 out of 23 free throws, an excellent hit rate and an immense number of free throws. For comparison: In the current season - now 39 years old - Nowitzki goes on average only 1.5 times per game to the free throw line.

At half time, the world selection leads with three points. A tough game in which the young basketball players pay nothing. Many play for their future here. At that time, high school players were allowed to switch directly to the NBA. This is no longer possible without at least one basketball year in college.

Nowitzki is increasingly dominating and shows his versatility: he throws threes, does not shy away from physical contact, dribbles from "Coast to Coast", that is, from his own half to the end - which players of his length almost never do (here in the video). In the final minutes Nowitzki is constantly on the free throw line. In the end, the world selection wins 104: 99.

Nowitzki is named MVP, the most valuable player: He breaks with his appearance a number of individual records, 33 points and 14 rebounds are on the statistic sheet. On the US side, five players have to leave the field prematurely because of too many fouls, very unusual. Nowitzki gives after the game his first TV interview in English - this performance he later called "at best cruel".

"Our thoughts worked quite well," says Geschwindner dryly. No reason to take off right away: "Dirk had a great game, but if you break a few records at the Hoop Summit, that does not mean you can pass the NBA, that's a very different number, so we are like going back home and playing 2nd league. " Nowitzki is the whole hustle and bustle uncomfortable. "After that hell was going on," he says in the book "Nowitzki". "The reporters from the TV stations, the scouts from the colleges and the NBA - all were suddenly on the spot, and I was at the center, but I wanted to go home to Würzburg."

From the "German Wunderkind" to the "Mummy"

There, Geschwindner expects a thunderstorm - "we were really beaten up, I was the youth spoiler and he the egoist who let his team down". The US daily newspaper, which Geschwindner had brought with them as an apology, did not help, title line "Young German Overruns US Boys". Geschwindner: "Now, after 20 years, it's easy to tell, but then we sweated blood and water."

Robert Garrett, the initiate on the team, does not remember any big accusations. "Of course, everyone looked around in bewilderment when Dirk did not show up, but we had a good team and knew we could win like that - which we did." All half as wild, at least found his teammates. "We knew that you should not miss out on this opportunity." That Nowitzki would deliver such a sensational appearance, the Würzburg team did not surprise. "It was pretty clear to us that he would do well, as dominant as he was, and he was playing against real men, over against high school kids over there."

SPIEGEL editor Thilo Neumann on his meeting with Dirk Nowitzki: "Celebrated as a demigod"

Video

THE MIRROR

The game in Texas certainly left the desired effect. "We had not really arrived at home yet, because the bells have formed in all places," says Geschwindner. US colleges, top clubs like Berlin, Leverkusen, Barcelona or Bologna - all wanted to commit to the super talent. NBA clubs showed interest.

The draft in June 1998, an NBA rights award, Nowitzki was pulled ninth by the Milwaukee Bucks. After a player exchange, he went to the Mavericks to Dallas, where he won the 2011 championship and still plays today. The city even wants to build a statue for him. Holger Geschwindner is still his personal trainer.

Instead of "The German prodigy" Mavericks fans call their supergreis, now 39 years old, now affectionately "The Big Mummy", because he sometimes seems hip-stiff and with tape and gauze reminds of a mummy. If the bones hold, he wants to hang on for another year. Or even two. "The will to bite, to show it to the boys, is still there," he says in the SPIEGEL interview and describes his career as "surreal". "Especially when you think about how it all started back then in Würzburg, this tall, thin guy from a small German town.