A favorite parlor game for NBA junkies in recent years has been assessing which star big men of the past would benefit most from playing in the league today.

Kevin Garnett, for instance, would thrive as a switch-everything center with all-court passing skills, and almost surely make more of an effort to consistently step behind the three-point line.

Some believe Shaquille O'Neal would feast down low even more given teams' growing propensity for small-ball, while others counter that the four-time champion could get played off the floor on defense by the game's best pull-up shooters.

What would happen if prime Charles Barkley was dropped into the modern NBA?

Dirk Nowitzki is still playing, of course, but that doesn't prevent him from being included in this discussion. The Dallas Mavericks icon, remember, began his career playing small forward before transitioning to power forward full-time.

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Can you imagine how much better his team would have been offensively if the Mavs committed to playing prime Nowitzki at center for portions of every game?

Nowitzki, though, definitely isn't the only overseas import who would be even better playing in today's league. The future Hall of Famer, in fact, believes the game's evolution makes it a “perfect” fit for European players.

“The growth of the league, I said it yesterday, the rules now play perfectly into the hands of skilled Europeans,” he told Dwain Price of Mavs.com. “It’s not as physical as it was back then. Everything is more open, everything is a pick-and-roll game now.”

The 2011 champion will consider retirement at season's end. The good news for the Mavericks, even if Nowitzki ultimately decides to hang it up?

In Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis, they have two more Europeans to exploit the rules and style of the modern game for man years to come.