What is the value of an NBA international superstar? Let the Dallas Mavericks show you.
DALLAS — When he comes back to his basketball home, Dirk Nowitzki makes a right turn onto the street named after him and takes a bashful look at the unavoidable 24-foot statue of him shooting that classic one-legged fadeaway. He parks, walks into American Airlines Center and glances modestly at his basketball life’s work: the 2011 NBA championship banner, his No. 41 hanging in the rafters. Finally, as he watches the current Dallas Mavericks, he allows himself to marvel.
Nowitzki and Doncic overlapped for one season, enabling a rather seamless transition from one European phenomenon to the next. Nowitzki became the Mavericks’ best player in 2000, his third NBA season. Doncic, mature beyond his 25 years, became the guy immediately. Put them together, and the Mavericks have had 24 seasons with an international face of the franchise. They have made the playoffs 19 times in that span. They have won at least 50 games 14 times.
Doncic is a beneficiary of the evolution, but he’s also here to amplify the growth of the game. Cuban and Nowitzki agree that Doncic is the best talent in team history. We can quibble about what the qualifications should be for the mythical title of “greatest Maverick,” but the crown doesn’t matter much to Nowitzki. He sees how Doncic, a point guard at 6-7, controls the offensive flow of the game, affecting everything with his deliberate style.
Becca Genecov, the franchise’s social media manager, has helped improve the Mavericks’ various accounts. They now rank among the best in the NBA at engaging fans. The popularity of Doncic creates what she cheerfully describes as “absolute madness.” Hisagainst the Atlanta Hawks in January provided the second-highest social engagement of the season, trailing only Irving’s ridiculous left-handed, game-winning hook shot against the Denver Nuggets. The buzzer-beater was on national television.
In Dallas, I Feel Slovenia Night included a visit from Iztok Mirosic, the Slovenian ambassador to the United States.“I started to hear about this kid when he was little — maybe 13 years old — in Slovenia. He was kind of a cool wonder at that time,” Mirosic said of Doncic. “Look at him now. He is the biggest Slovenian brand in the United States. No doubt about that one.”
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