In the pantheon of difficult to spell foreign last names, Dirk Nowitzki's is surely at the bottom. Not only is the Dallas Mavericks legend's surname just eight letters and bereft of Cyrillic, but it's also generally pronounced as it's spelled. Nonetheless, spelling his surname proved difficult for a bevy of NBA players and Gregg Popovich who was asked to do the seemingly pedestrian task only to struggle quite a bit (including his own Mavs teammates as well as close friend Pau Gasol) with some even failing entirely like with Stephen Curry.

This will probably be the last we'll see the Nowitzki name in a while as he officially announced his retirement after Tuesday night's grand send-off at home. The 7-foot German has languished most of the season due to offseason surgery and looked to be a shell of his former self, missing wide-open jumpers and playing sparingly before experiencing a short renaissance after a strong All-Star Weekend performance.

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The entire NBA was already preparing for the inevitability of Nowitzki calling it a career based on how they have seen him play and whether they guessed correctly or just forced the European into the decision is up for debate considering that Nowitzki's decision to hang it up was only decided just a few days ago.

Where Nowitzki goes from here is a mystery – but if it's on TV, Curry and his peers are fortunate that there are title cards.