While Luka Doncic pursues greatness as the Dallas Mavericks strive for another playoff berth, Dirk Nowitzki, years ago, blazed the trail for the 22-year-old superstar. Sculpting statues for franchise legends is nothing new. However, until Nowitzki, the Dallas Mavericks had no such player.
The Mavericks organization’s admirable honoring of its franchise legend, Nowitzki provoked tears. Following the home game versus the Phoenix Suns, Cuban and company went all out in showcasing how important Nowitzki is to the city of Dallas.
In what was both a spectacular and surreal event, five former NBA players attended and spoke with nothing but respect for the 2011 NBA champion in front of thousands of Mavericks fans.
Honoring Dirk Nowitzki
NBA legend Larry Bird, six-time NBA champion Scottie Pippen, former Seattle Supersonic Detlef Schrempf, Basketball HOF Charles Barkley, and high-flying Shawn Kemp praised Nowitzki’s highly accomplished career.
The difficulty in not only getting those players on the phone, in addition to getting them all on the same night, spoke volumes to what Nowitzki represents in the basketball world.
Following the amazing tribute to Nowitzki, a statue in his honor seemed imminent.
In April 2020, a month after the NBA shut down, Cuban provided an update on the statue to Mavs Moneyball’s Doyle Rader.
“You know, this obviously slowed it down.The hope was to have a model ready to show the second game of this coming season when we retire his jersey. We’ll have to see how everything plays out.”
Understandably, the virus foiled plans as it did for the rest of the world. Thankfully, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Cuban recently spoke with Landon Buford regarding the progress of Nowitzki’s statue.
” We hired the sculpter and I signed all the paperwork, so he is working on it. When I don’t know. You have to let an artist be an artist,” said Cuban.
Perhaps we see a model of the statue before the season’s end. For now, the Mavericks have a playoff berth it needs to clinch.
