re:Dirk Nowitzki thread

[Joe Hironaka <j.hironaka@unesco.org>]

Hi list:

As far as I can tell, Dirk Nowitzki is in no way committed to play next
season with Kinder Bologna, the team that has Rad Nesterovic presently
under contract. My guess is that Nowitzki momentarily wavered from
entering the NBA draft only because he was considering enrolling at
Berkeley. Simple as that.

IMO it would be ridiculous for the Celtics to draft Nowitzki based on
his one terrific game against U.S. highschoolers. I hope they have
scouted all of his games and (secretly) worked him out recently. I love
the intrigue of this situation, and can't wait to hear how the story
unfolds.  My guess is that 1) Nellie will draft him and 2) Bologna or
the Greeks with sign him for two years. End of story.

If the Celtics do draft him, I think we should be especially patient
with the kid or even farm him out for a year in Bologna to eat good
pasta and play ball against real adults. I'm worried that AW (a superior
and stronger athlete) will really take it to the kid in practices and
make Dirk gun shy and "know his place" in the food chain.

In that light, I've always thought Toni Kukoc's game suffered because
Jordan and Pippen were annoyed by the huge hype of his signing and made
sure he knew it.  My take is that Kukoc is a great player but he ended
up with a teammate (Pippen) who is the one guy in the world who can do
everything better than him (except hit last second shots). Because Kukoc
is not even as good as the guy he tries to guard everyday in practice,
IMO he has never had the guts to test how good he is in the league as a
whole, where confidence (cockiness) is everything . My fear is that Dirk
also could develop this "Swen Nater complex" (the eventual NBA
rebounding champ who for four years was an underconfident benchwarmer on
Bill Walton's UCLA teams, getting his every shot swatted back to him in
practice by the laid-back, dope-smoking starter).

My second fear is that Dirk will have lazy euro-bigman feet, like old
friend Dino Radja (don't worry, I'm not basing this on ever having gone
to see Dirk play). If the kid isn't willing or capable to press all 92
feet, he will be despised by his hard-working teammates and given up on
by his ever-fickle coach.

But as risky as it is to "go euro", IMO a player like Dirk would still
qualify as a steal at number 10.  If he has any kind of head on his
shoulders, he's gonna be an NBA star by age 24.


Go Boston Celtics

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