Dirk Nowitzki has put forth an illustrious career that has seen him accomplish numerous individual and team goals that will one day make him a sure-fire Hall of Famer.
However, it has been his humility as a player that has stood out more than anything else in his NBA career. Another prime example of that rare characteristic was a personal anecdote about Nowitzki last season from his former teammate David Lee, who recounted a time when the former league MVP was asked to cover Stephen Curry by head coach Rick Carlisle, according to Bleacher Report's Jonathan Abrams.
“Well, Dirk raises his hand and says, ‘Are you out of your mind? You think I'm switching on to Steph Curry? No way, I'm going to hedge and get out of the way. There is no way in hell you're putting me in an iso against him,'” Lee recalled. “I just thought, how amazing that is for a guy like Dirk, who has accomplished what he had, to be that kind of self-aware that that's not his strong suit anymore. And everybody in the locker room just started laughing. And Carlisle just looks at him and says, ‘Oh, OK, you can just hedge then.' He actually did switch onto Steph a couple times during the game and did a great job, but Dirk just having a complete lack of ego like that was just something that was really special to me.”
It is a rarity to see superstar players take a step back and admit that they are lacking in a certain area of their game. They are often times the most confident players on the court and have the ego to back that personal belief up.
However, Nowitzki doesn't appear to have any of that at this point of his career as he has full clarity of what he can and cannot do on the court. That said, it's hard to find any player that can effectively one-on-one and guard two-time league MVP Curry as he has proven to be a tough assignment for just about everyone in the league.
All in all, this only speaks to the type of player that Nowitzki has been over his career that has spanned nearly two decades.
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