Comprehensive biography of one of the greatest figures of Dallas sports, the NBA, and really sports history as a whole.

Great book for any fan of sports or just interesting lives.

ARC provided.

For any basketball fan, Dirk Nowitzki, the former 2007 NBA MVP and 2011 NBA Champion needs no introduction. It is not an exaggeration to call him a basketball revolutionary, a 7 footer who played like a guard and a man who helped make the sport more variable, creative and smarter.

Pletzinger, a German novelist and sportswriter, traveled with the Mavericks superstar Dirk Nowitzki for seven years, seeking the secret of his success and longevity. Most interestingly he spent this time with Nowitzki in the later years of his career – the period between his 2011 NBA title and his 2019 eventual retirement after a remarkable 25 years as a Dallas Maverick.

As a result, like a normal biography, the early years of Nowitzki’s career are told through the memories of the vast number of people Pletzinger spoke to. However, at no point does this feel like a typical biography as the time Pletzinger spends with the player himself and his personal coach Holger Geschwinder, leads to an openness that is both refreshing and rare.

Central to Nowitzki’s career, and his life since turning 15, is the fascinating figure of Geschwinder. Described alternatively as a shooting coach, master coach, manager, psychologist, janitor, clairvoyant, consultant and friend, Geschwinder was the mentor who helped Nowitkzi turn his potential into world beating talent. Together player and coach identified the importance of sacrifice, discipline, and to work without compromise with the book capturing their legendary personal workouts to hone Nowitzki’s body and shooting. It’s impossible to do justice to their relationship without capturing the minutiae of their dynamic as Pletzinger so excellently does.

The strongest parts of the book are those which capture Pletzinger’s personal interaction with Nowitzki and the surrounding ‘Dirkmania’. They capture Nowitzki’s life, his personality, his way of carrying himself in an intimate manner denied most biographers. They also cover the most interesting part of any player’s career, those post peak years when Nowitzki is both an active player and a legend. As Pletzinger says, the book is his ‘quest to find the significance of Nowitzki… [his] attempt to make sense of Dirk Nowitzki’. The Nowitzki he ultimately finds is remarkable for his ordinariness while living, and making the sacrifices required to live, an extraordinary life.

This is a special book. A really great read that captures the uniqueness of Nowitzki, his impact on basketball & Dallas and the sacrifice & dedication required to play at the top level for so long. It works not just as biography but as a story of sporting fame and fandom. Of the symbiotic relationship between a superstar and his city, country and the broad range of people touched by his feats of sporting greatness. Comparison’s to The Breaks of the Game, David Halberstam’s masterpiece of sports writing are valid in how engrossing, engaging and special this book is – and there is no greater praise I can give a book than that.

The book was published in German a couple of years ago shortly after Nowitzki’s final game. However the translation has been done very carefully – Pletzinger describes it as a ‘cultural translation’ with parts being edited, added and removed to suit the intended US audience. It is clearly a successful approach from how readable the book is.

The Great Nowitzki is a great biography of one of the greatest basketball players of all time. Fantastic insight behind the scenes of a notoriously private figure. While the title is reminiscent of Hemingway (and his Great Dimaggio of The Old Man and the Sea), its apt. Nowitzki was his sport’s and generation’s Dimaggio to a vast number of fans. Was Nowitzki the best of his generation? Arguably, but then also obviously arguably not. But Dimaggio wasn’t the best of his generation, he was just the best Yankee of his generation, and therefore iconic to the global diaspora of Yankee fans.

Some grammatical mistakes throughout, some of which likely come from the fact that the author isn’t a native english speaker (and writer) and this is a translation from German.

I wish there was more in the book about Nowitzki’s great rivals. His friendship with Nash is heavily focused on, and its briefly mentioned that they played against each other. The Lakers are mentioned, I guess because how can you not mention the Lakers, especially as they were the three time defending conference champs when Dirk’s Mavs finally won the title. The Thunder are mentioned, contrasted with the aging Mavs due to their youth and status as the next great team full of the stars of tomorrow. But its almost criminal that the Spurs aren’t featured more. The Mavs longtime foil, and built around Tim Duncan, the greatest power forward of all time. Nowitzki, despite undeniably innovating the game at the same position, is merely ONE OF the greatest pf’s, among a group of perhaps 6-10, but Duncan sits atop the group generally by acclaim. Another of those power forwards, Kevin Garnett, was also contemporaneous with Dirk, and all three played much of their careers in the same division. But the rivalries between them and Dirk aren’t even mentioned. The Spurs are noted a couple times, including at the very end, but the lack of coverage feels like an omission.

Not going deeper with Duncan and the Spurs is particularly egregious considering their pivotal role in Dirk’s career narrative. Dirk is great. Going into detail on his main career antagonists doesn’t threaten or tarnish that greatness. It would be like describing Michael Jordan’s career arc without mentioning the Detroit Pistons Bad Boys teams and their Jordan Rules. In fact, the central theme of this biography - Dirk’s discipline and striving, and overcoming deep disappointments in losing for many years before finally breaking through for himself, but also for the Mavericks and the city of Dallas - would have been more effectively emphasized if counterpointed with Duncan’s career. Dirk played 21 seasons, all in Dallas, scored over 30k points, grabbed over 10k rebounds, made countless allstar and allNBA teams, won the league MVP award, and won a championship. Its tough to imagine a better career. But then you have Duncan.

Duncan entered the league the year before Dirk, and played 19 seasons, all in San Antonio, just down the highway from Dallas. That means the two players played against each other for 18 years, for two in-state division rivals, playing essentially the same position but in vastly different ways, and they’re both alltime greats. You’d think there would be narrative gold to mine here, and there is, but Pletzinger ignores it for the most part.

Duncan, like Nowitzki, was an international player, from the US Virgin Islands. Like Nowitzki, he didn’t grow up focused solely on basketball, but was a swimmer until a storm destroyed the pool he trained at, just as Nowitzki played tennis and handball intensively. Unlike Nowitzki, Duncan played high level US college basketball, four years in all, and yet was only a couple years older than Nowitzki. While Dirk took his lumps as a 20 year old rookie, and took a few years to round into allstar form, Duncan won rookie of the year and was immediately named to the allNBA first team (reserved for the top 5 players in the league). His team also saw immediate success, making it to the second round of the playoffs that first year. Duncan’s early Spurs teams were veteran laden, resembling the 2011 Mavericks team that Dirk led to the title. As such, it wasn’t necessarily surprising that they were so competitive, while Dirk’s early Mavs squads took time to get to that level. In Dirk’s rookie year, when he barely played until it was clear the Mavs were eliminated from qualifying for the playoffs, Duncan in his second season was a top runner up for MVP and led the Spurs to their first championship (so a full dozen years before Dirk would eventually win). Contrasted with the success starved and hungry Nowitzki and his Mavs, the Spurs could be looked at as a team well fed on victories. The Spurs would go on to win the title again in 2003 and 2005, years when the Mavs were still trying to find themselves in a crowded western conference. Duncan won 2 MVP’s to Dirk’s 1, and would finish with 5 titles to Dirk’s 1, and its in his team’s accolades that the differences are most stark.

In fact, running through the regular season finishes and post season fortunes of both teams further underscores the pain that Nowitzki had to have felt by 2011, maybe as much as the 2006 Finals loss and 2007 upset loss to Golden State. In 1999, the Spurs finished 1st in the division, while Dallas was only 5th and missed the playoffs. In 2000 San Antonio finished 2nd and Dallas was 4th and missed the playoffs again. In 2001, the Spurs were 1st again and the Mavs were 3rd and finally made the playoffs, but lost to the Spurs in the 2nd rd 4-1. In 2002 the Spurs won the division again and the Mavs rose to 2nd, and while both lost in the 2nd rd, the Spurs loss was to the eventual champion Lakers. In 2003 the teams had identical regular season records, but the Spurs won the division again on a tiebreaker, and while the teams met in the conference finals, the Spurs prevailed again, 4-2 (and also knocked off the 3x defending champ Lakers, and also as mentioned above would go on to win the title). In 2004, the last year of the Filthy Dirty Nasty era, the Spurs finished 2nd and the Mavs 3rd, both teams leapfrogged by Garnett’s Timberwolves, and the Mavs were knocked out in the 1st rd, the Spurs in the 2nd (in an epic series with the Lakers, the team the Spurs saw as more of a rival to them as the Mavs). In 2005 the Spurs edged the Mavs for the division title by a single game once again, and while the Mavs were eliminated by Nash’s Suns in the 2nd rd, it was the Spurs who then beat the Suns in the conference finals and went on to win another title. In 2006 the Spurs won the division again, the Mavs finished 2nd again, but this was the year that Dirk and Dallas finally pushed past San Antonio, a 2nd rd 4-3 win, only to eventually lose to the Heat in the Finals. What probably contributed to Dirk’s 2007 frustration was that that was the first year Dallas finished ahead of San Antonio in the regular season during his career, by a whopping 9 games, though the Spurs were still 2nd. While the series win the previous year got the monkey off their backs, the advantage of a regular season lead and home court advantage in the rematch would have been hard to quantify. Instead, Dirk’s team saw their season end early in upset fashion in the 1st rd, and to make things worse, their rival would go on to win the title, the 4th of Duncan’s career, hoisting a trophy that Dirk probably thought should have been his. In 2008, Dallas finished 4th while San Antonio lost the division title on a tie breaker. Dirk lost out in the first to a New Orleans team that San Antonio would subsequently knock out in the next round, losing eventually in the conference finals. In 2009, San Antonio finished 1st again and Dallas finished 3rd, but Dirk got his 2nd win over San Antonio, knocking them out in the 1st rd, only to bow out in the next round. Pletzinger paints the pain of losing that series, referring to Denver’s tough D, but it wasn’t tougher than San Antonio’s. The deeper pain was losing to a random team like Denver after getting by the big bad of the Spurs. In 2010, the roles were reversed: the Mavs finally won another division title, San Antonio finishing 2nd, and they were again matches up in the 1st rd, as the 2-7 matchup, but San Antonio scored the upset this time, then losing in the 2nd rd.

So for those still scoring at home, in the 12 seasons leading up to Dirk’s title - the focal point of this book - the Mavs won 2 division titles to 7 for San Antonio, finished behind the Spurs in the standings 10x while only finishing ahead of them twice, and faced the Spurs in the playoffs 5x, with the Spurs coming out on top in three of those. While a 3-2 head to head series record certainly isn’t much of an edge overall, a fuller picture is provided by looking at the teams’ overall playoff series wins during this period: 24 for San Antonio, to only 9 for Dallas. This was indeed a team and fanbase relatively hungry for success.

In that cherished 2011 season, the reason the Mavs and their fans likely weren’t expecting the glory that was to come is that once again they finished 2nd to the Spurs in the division. But in a reversal of 2007, this time the Spurs got knocked out in the 1st while the Mavs had the run that they had. Its probably good taste to just accept the good times that is an NBA championship, but as a fan I’ve always wondered if it didn’t feel just a little empty that they didn’t get to go through their arch rivals to get there. I was hoping Pletzinger would pull at this string, but to no avail.

Adding to the frustration that Dirk must have felt in the down years after that title, especially the rebuilding ones, is the fact that San Antonio put themselves back atop the league during this same time. While Pletzinger’s hinting that OKC was the team of the future was partly correct - the Thunder would win the western conference in 2012, the year after the Mavs title and the year they won the four game sweep over Dallas detailed in the book - it is an incomplete story. San Antonio would win the west again in 2013, and then the championship in 2014, the 5th during Duncan and Nowitzki’s careers. Two years later Duncan would retire, and three years after that, Nowitzki.

Is it the clean redemption story of Jordan vanquishing the Pistons and winning happily ever after for the next few years? No, but then that’s the stuff of fairy tales, and the story of Dirk Nowitzki is real life. Gritty and realistic, a peak that is fought and scraped for, and much easier lost than gained. This is the story far more of us can identify with, and its likely why Dirk won’t soon be forgotten, at least not by those to whom he is the Great Nowitzki.

Dirk Nowitzki is one of the most important and relevant players of recent history. Any NBA fan will love reading this book looking at his journey. Nowitzki's background, NBA rise and the end of the road all have interesting notes. Basketball changed internationally thanks to Dirk proving foreign players could thrive in the NBA and his story is a great read.

Absolutely fascinating read as Pletzinger aims high here and does not settle for a simple biography. He essentially tries to create a mystery story for him to solve with the mystery being how does Dirk Nowitzki manage to capitalize on his natural gifts with hard work and take advantage of very specific circumstances that allow him to eventually be one of the greatest basketball players ever. The concept is a bit force in some areas, unsuccessful in others, but never boring. Recommended for NBA die-hards.

Subtitled: Basketball and the Meaning of Life

I received an advance reader copy of this book from the publisher through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

I don’t follow the NBA closely, and during Dirk Nowitzki’s career I didn’t even watch ESPN that much so I didn’t get exposed to his play except for when I watched the various skills contests during NBA All-Star weekends. I requested to review this book because I wanted to learn more about the German superstar and the details surrounding his outstanding career.


While this book does cover Nowitzki’s career beginning in Germany and on through his long career with the Dallas Mavericks, it’s not just a book about points, rebounds, and assists. The main focus of the book is on Nowitzki’s intense mental and physical training sessions with his trainer, a former German basketball star named Holger Geschwindner. While exhausting, the sessions left Nowitzki uniquely prepared in both mind and body to face the rigors of the NBA and to excel at the game of basketball as few have done before.

I gave The Great Nowitzki five stars on Goodreads because of its unique approach to the biography format and the game of basketball. It exposed the uncommon blend of physical, intellectual, and philosophical preparation that helped develop the greatest European player in NBA history and explored the unique relationship between the player and trainer.

A different take on a sports biography. In "The Great Nowitzki" we go behind the scenes and learn more about Dirk through stories told from those who have been with him all the way through the journey. Some of these stories drag especially in the first 50% of the book however the chapters around the 2011 championship run and his eventual retirement are interesting

Dirk Nowitzki was one of my favorite basketball players of all time (and remains so after his retirement). I knew that his training and background were considered funky, and that his press interviews were entertaining (he'd pick up the mike, lean way back in his chair, and gave the air of someone just hanging out and shooting bull with his friends), but other than that, I knew nothing of him off the basketball court. I was looking forward to this book because of my fanhood, but also because I wanted to learn more about Nowitzki's training and background. One of the best parts of this book is the high level of access that Pletzinger had to Nowitzki. He was able to hang out with him, ride in cars with him, go to Nowitzki's house, talk extensively with family members, friends, anyone who'd ever interacted with him. Due to this access, you get a very full picture of who Nowitzki is... to the point that he allowed it to be seen. Throughout the book, I would get the idea that as open as Nowitzki was being, he was still guarded with the things he said and did. It was a delicate balancing act that the author never fully penetrated. Then again, we could be looking at a cultural difference, in which Nowitzki's German heritage makes him more private. I don't really know how Germans are in that regard, but I was still left wondering who Nowitzki really was by the end of the book.

I also wonder if some of that comes from his single-minded pursuit of basketball greatness. Nowitzki and his coach/trainer/parter/teacher/everything man Holger Geschwinder spent the majority of the book (which means the majority of the day to day of Nowitzki's career) training to get better. Geschwinder does his best to broaden Nowitzki's horizons, but the only details we get from that is that Dirk is in a book club with a few teammates, and they read "East of Eden" and "Stamped from the Beginning". There's some discussion of art, as Nowitzki's wife Jessica works in art, but other than that, it's basketball all the time. It's interesting; in a lot of ways, Nowitzki reminded me of Michael Jordan. Single minded focus on getting better and winning, but the difference is that everyone who interacted with Nowitzki seems to love him, while the same couldn't be said of Jordan. In fact, the love for Nowitzki almost made the book boring at points. There's only so many times you can read what a game changing, talented, hard working, nice guy he is. While all that is true, it does make for some repetitive reading.

All that being said, the book was extremely enjoyable. It gives great detail into Nowitzki's entire career, and brings a lot of Geschwinder's training methods and ideas to the forefront. It was interesting to read as a teacher, as there were many things that Geschwinder was ahead of the game on. While the subtitle "The Meaning of Life" doesn't feel quite accurate, the book does a good job of outlining the meaning of Nowitzki, particularly in European basketball. I think that there could have been more focus on what he meant to NBA basketball (there was a little of this analysis, but not a lot), but I think that the author's intent was to look at what it means to dedicate your life to one job, and to doing that job exceptionally well. Using Nowitzki as his lens, I believe he was mostly successful at getting this point across.

For many years, I watched Nowitzki play ball on my TV or computer. He was a phenomenal player who never seemed to miss. To read about his training, his routines, his diet, his thoughts, along with snippets from his home life and past were a delight.
I felt the book flicked from time to time somewhat and I would have preferred it to be more sequential, a little too much emphasis was also focussed on people other than Nowitzki for my liking.
Essential reading though for lovers of NBA and nice to spend one final period of time with Nowitzki running the show.
Thanks to NetGalley and W. W. Norton & Company for providing me with an Advance Reader's Copy in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

The Great Nowitzki goes WAY in-depth on all facets of Dirk Nowitzki's life. It's definitely more detailed than most sports bios due to the author's level of access. I guess your mileage may vary with this book depending on how interested you are in Nowitzki's life and unique training regimen. I think the man you meet in this book is a great change of pace from the normal athlete. I like quiet strength, which Dirk seems to possess.

Not a name i knew from the basketball World but that intrigued me. This is not a sprint but a marathon. From family structure and early memories of sports to joining the national team. Leaving native Germany to join the NBA.
A fantastic career playing for just one team, unheard of in today's chase the money careers. The loyalty, commitment and dedication to reach and maintain peak fitness and mentally strong is detailed.
A fascinating read and someone who youngsters should look upto.

Dirk Nowitzki will go down as one of the greatest players in professional basketball history. He played 21 seasons in the NBA, all with the Dallas Mavericks with the highlight of his career coming when he led his Mavericks to the NBA championship and was named the MVP of the NBA Finals against the Miami Heat. His story of his development as a player in Germany, and his career with Dallas is captured in this excellent book by Thomas Pletzinger.
Originally published in German in 2019, the English version is one that American fans should be sure to pick up whether or not they were Novitizki or Mavericks fans. Pletzinger spent six years working on this project while spending many days during that time frame talking to Dirk, to his longtime personal coach in both Germany and Dallas, Holger Gerschwinder and key people in Dirk’s professional life in Dallas. However, that statement doesn’t do justice to the connections Pletzinger made to give the reader a complete picture of not only Dirk the basketball player but Dirk the person. THis makes the book a very different read than the typical sports biography or memoir in that it delves into other areas of the subject’s life because the author was part of it.
Beyond the season and game recap, Pletzinger brings the reader inside other areas of Nowitzki’s life, starting with his relationship with Gerschwinder. The conversations between them that are shared in the book are very interesting since they are more than just the drills and unusual training methods used by Gerschwinder. There are paragraphs how music, specifically jazz music, gets tied in with Dirk’s life and this is made even better with quotes from Ernest Butler. There are interviews and information from Dirk’s family in both Germany and America, teammates on both teams and so many others.
One of those “others” is a poignant moment that I felt set the tone for not only the quality of the book but captures how nearly everyone who has met Nowitzki has felt about him. Before Nowitizki, Drazen Petrovic was considered to be the best European player to play in the NBA before he tragically died at 28. In the book, Dirk is called to meet a woman after the 2005 European tournament in which he led Germany to the title and has already made his mark in the NBA. Dirk opens his hotel room door and meets Petrovic’s mother who tells him that he reminds her of her son and plays the game the right way. It remains one of the most memorable moments of Nowitzki’s life.
That is just one small example of the many great moments and passages in this book that pays a proper tribute to one of the truly great players in basketball history.
I wish to thank W.W. Norton for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This interesting read isn't your typical basketball book detailing game by game or season by season. The German author tells the story of how Dirk Nowitzki became the most well known German basketball player and the story of how he rose to the top level of the NBA. It details the large role Nowitzki's mentor Holger Geschwindner played throughout his life and how Nowitzki has stayed down to earth. Overall, this was a very interesting glimpse into Dirk Nowitzki as both a person and international basketball player, and the people around him who helped him become who he is.