Dirk Nowitzki

Born: 1978

Professional Basketball Player

Dirk Nowitzki, the seven-foot-tall forward center for the Dallas Mavericks, was born in Würzburg in southern Germany. Nowitzki comes from an athletic family, his father is a handball player, his mother and his older sister used to play for the German women's national basketball team.

As a teenager, while still living in Germany, he was sporadically recruited by American colleges. From 1997 to 1998, he was absolved of the mandatory military service in Germany, and he continued to play pro basketball on weekends. Before he joined the Mavericks in 1998, he played basketball in Germany’s second division. Over the years Nowitzki has been referred to as “German Wunderkind.”

Although he is the second German (after Detlef Schrempf) to play in the NBA, he is the first European to have won the NBA’s MVP award of the regular 2006/2007 season. In his spare time, Nowitzki enjoys reading and playing the saxophone.

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