After retiring at the end of the 2018-19 NBA season, Dallas Mavericks legend and future Hall of Famer Dirk Nowitzki now enters the next stage of his life: as the appointed chair of the FIBA Players Commission.
Nowitzki is the greatest European player in the history of the game and one of the greatest international players ever, so it's only fitting for the Mavs icon to take the position.
While Dirk told Brad Townsend of The Dallas Morning News that the timing was very soon — given that it hasn't been long since he retired — he found the position interesting. Remarkably, Nowitzki has already started doing his job, noting that he has reached out to players for their feedback on the 2019 FIBA World Cup.
“They approached me a couple of weeks ago. I thought it was interesting, even though the timing is very soon. Originally I said I kind of wanted a year off and not really thinking about stuff and totally be with family,” Dirk Nowitzki said.
“But this is obviously an opportunity that doesn't come around very often. It starts now. It's a four-year commitment. I said ‘I'm on board.' I played of course a lot of international ball over my career. There's little things that we always talked about as a team with the guys that we would like to change. Maybe the format. Rules. So I thought it would be a good opportunity to speak for some of these athletes, having played both NBA and FIBA a lot.
“I'm going to be working close with the players and getting their feedback, even now, from the World Cup already, seeing what worked and what wasn't great. Hopefully it's making a change for the better for the players.”
Even during his playing days, Nowitzki was one of the more vocal players in the league, and certainly one of the more respected figures in the game. He should serve as an excellent ambassador for the international body of basketball.
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