Per Game: 20.7 points, 7.5 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 1.3 threes, 0.8 steals, 0.8 blocks
Per 75 Possessions: 23.9 points, 8.7 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.5 threes, 0.9 steals, 1.0 blocks
Relative True Shooting Percentage: +4.1
Win Shares per 48 Minutes: .193
"[He] made his NBA debut in [1999].
"Before that, a total of 40 7-footers had hit a 3P. The combined total for 3P from those 40 players was 507.
"Dirk Nowitzki made 1,982 3P in his career.
"Since Dirk started, 81 other 7-footers have hit 7,253 3P."
Without Dirk, who knows where the game would be today? He expanded our expectations of 7-footers, ushering in an era more reliant on skill than any before it.
Today, it doesn't matter what position you play or how tall you are. Every skill should be sought-after.
Nowitzki is on the short list of players who truly changed the game.
He had plenty of team success along the way, too.
Over his career (1998-99 to 2018-19), the Dallas Mavericks were first in points per 100 possessions (108.9) and third in simple rating system (a combination of point differential and strength of schedule).
And in 2011, Nowitzki led the Mavs to an unlikely championship over the Miami Heat at the dawn of the superteam era.
"Remarkably, Nowitzki's 2010-11 season was the first time he'd started slowing down a bit since his first All-Star appearance nine years earlier. Nobody thought much of the Mavericks that season, and with the Lakers still in power, the Thunder and Heat on the rise, and Dallas' core slowly aging out of relevance there was already the sense that Dirk was somewhere on the shoulder of his time as a championship contender. Teams like those Mavericks don't win titles, and yet Nowitzki was good enough for 21 games to defy that logic."
Over those 21 games, Nowitzki averaged 27.7 points, 8.1 rebounds and 2.5 assists. He shot 48.5 percent from the field and 46.0 percent from three en route to a 60.9 true shooting percentage.
That summer, Dirk went from being an all-time great to a legend.
In the first round of that postseason, six of 12 ESPN experts picked the Portland Trail Blazers over Dallas. In the next round, 14 of 14 picked the Los Angeles Lakers. The narrative shifted for the Western Conference Finals, when 12 of 18 experts went with Dallas. Then finally, 15 of 22 went with the Miami Heat in the Finals.
In the context of this ranking, the way Dirk put his underdog Mavericks on his back for the game's ultimate prize is worth more than the slight statistical edges Malone and Barkley may have over him.
