Nowitzness

It's hard, but not entirely impossible, to believe that in this blog's 50 post existence, Dirk has been mentioned a grand total of 0 times.

The Mavs acquired Nowitzki in what will be remembered as right up there with Vlade-Kobe in terms of utilizing the rape stick. Tractor Traylor (for whom they acquire Nowitz) is a fine, compelling player who happens to resemble a bowling ball, but he is most certainly not a future hall of famer, nor is he the greatest (debatably) international player ever. Nowitz is all two of those things.

Nowitz' game upon entering the league was basically the same as Vladimir Radmanovich's is now. He hung around the 3 point line shooting J's, only wandering into the key as an incidental; maybe to finish on fast breaks or grab a stray rebound.Unlike Radmanovich, Dirk kept improving, and improving, and improving. The bookon Dirk circa 03-04 was that he could be contained with a smaller defender (a la Bruce Bowen) who could get in his face on the outside J and keep his increasingly excellent driving game in check.

But, as is the story with Dirk, he stepped his game up and developed an efficient back to the basket game. At this point, he's basically unguardable when his jumper is falling, and the Mavericks are a terrific team for it.