Dirk Nowitzki: Broadening Horizons to Improve On Court | Forward Progress

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0:43This week, Dirt Nowitzki.

0:50Did I read this correctly, that you were popular in high school because of bubblegum? Well, you guys really did some deep research, but I was always hungry, and so I either had a little gum, which of course is not allowed in school, but I always kind of like had a half, just a little piece, something, just a nibble on. And so some of my friends would always come, like, hey, do you have something? And I'm like, here's a little piece of gum, but yeah, that's, I forgot I said that. That's good research. How did the hairstyle change after Boris Becker won Wimbledon? You know, hairstyles, I tried way too many things in my career, in my life.

1:34But that was cool. I was a huge tennis fan. And I remember going to the hairdresser and I was like, I want my hair cut like Boris. And she's like, what? So she didn't make it red, but she made it sort of spiky, I guess. Boris was one of my first, you know, idols that I loved watching. He was such a warrior. He won Wimbledon when he was 17. Just a great, great player. Why do you consider basketball a girly sport? I think that was early when I played handball and tennis. And handball, you know, I don't know. Handball is not really big in the U.S., but it's really big in Europe. You can push somebody.

2:11You can hold them. You can even shove them to the ground at times and only get, like, a little bit of a penalty. And so, to me, that was a tough sport. And my mom and my sister both played basketball. So to me, that was like, you know, you can't touch anybody. And, you know, if you bump somebody too hard, it's two shots. And so to me, growing up, there were just us boys, we play handball. When I was about 10, 11, they were like, you're so tall, you can just come to one practice. And so I joined the school team. We're doing well right away. And then I really started really loving the sport. And then I joined the club with my cousin, who was a year older than me.

2:50He kind of took me, he was like, just see one practice and see if you like it. And that was it. Really? Loved it. Loved it from day one and never stopped again. And explain the school gym, by the way. I mean, the court, nothing like this. Yeah, it's probably half the size. Basketball wasn't a big sport in Germany at all at the time, so there were really no nice school gyms. If you want to play basketball or really any sport in Europe, you usually join a club. The club have the nice facilities and nice gyms. So the school gyms are usually super small. And it was like it was this wooden backboard.

3:29And I mean, it was old school, but it was enough for us to run around a little bit, do some layups. That's where I really started was in the school team. Holger, what impact did he have on your life? He was just a huge mentor, and I owe him everything because I wasn't sure at the time of 15 where this journey in basketball would take me. And he taught me everything. He taught me how to move, to shoot, and also helped me off the court with stuff, with school, and just growing into the person I wanted to become. What would he have you read? Every year for a birthday or Christmas, he would give me books.

4:09And I'm like, oh, great. Another book, Holger. That's sweet. Great, great gift. But he always tried to brighten my horizon and learn different things. And some were novels. Some were, like, books really hard to read for me about nature and physics. And I'm just like, Holger, this is not. It takes me years to get through this. You know, he had me play music. He wanted me to play the saxophone. So I played the saxophone for a couple years. is that, you know, just open your mind up to other things, not just sports. And also at the time, we weren't sure if it's going to work out. So he said, the more well-rounded you are, it's going to help you in life better if you need a job later on or whatever.

4:52But yeah, that was his way of always trying to push me and push me to new limits. And you mentioned the saxophone. What did he once have you dribbled to? So we had one of his friends was a jazz musician and he actually was his mentor when he started playing and so the guy would sometimes come to practice with his sax and he would play the saxophone and we'd had to dribble to the rhythm and then you know mix up the dribbles and make the basically the bouncing sound as the drums and Holger would call it dance the game. He didn't want us to play like robots, right? He never, growing up, even when he was coaching, he didn't want us to run all these plays and you just go set this pick and you set another pick.

5:40His philosophy was everybody's got to have fun and enjoy. It's like a, the sport is like a jazz band. There's five guys out there. Everybody has their own skill level and they're all good at something. And he always said when somebody did a good move, he was like, oh, b-ball is jazz. Explain how he was trying to help you as a defender by fencing? So the long story is he never liked weightlifting. He thought that I was still growing as I was as a teenager and it's just going to hurt my joints. So we basically tried to find things in the summer for me to do to keep the fun, get a little bigger, a little stronger, or movement, better movement.

6:26So we tried all sorts of other different sports to see, hey, what training can we steal from them? What's good for what could work for us? So we rode a lot. We did a rowing camp every year in the summer, which is good all around power. We went to like a boxing training just to see how they train and warm up. And then fencing was on the schedule once. I'm like, I don't even have a suit or anything. What are we doing? So this club made me a whole fencing suit and I got to fence. And what's so good about fencing is they're attacking, but while they attack, they also always play defense. So basically Holger's philosophy there was on defense, basically you have to be active with your hands and without selling out and giving too much up and somebody can just blow by you.

7:20So it was a cool experience. But as we all know, I think defense wasn't really my strong suit. So I don't think the fencing took my defense to another level, but it was fun to see. One quick favor before you leave. Please consider giving the podcast a rating and review. Those go a long way in helping us reach new listeners. Thanks for your support.