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From the Dallas Morning News
<3 Dirk
Go Mavericks in 07-08
GREAT long article. Was just told this month that Dirk's father was having a very serious surgery over in Germany at the time. No excuse for him to do bad, but for him to still go to the games and score 20 a game in that was pretty nice.Between bites of roast chicken, potatoes and Caesar salad, Dallas Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki playfully fielded questions about his personal life. No topics verboten. He divulged that he has a personal chef, doesn't have a girlfriend, hasn't been to a mall in about six years and can't remember when he last went to a movie.
Fun factoids about the NBA's reigning Most Valuable Player? Actually, Nowitzki regards them as drawbacks to being a world-visible athlete. Though affable with the media, he closely guards what little privacy he has left.
So while the top-seeded Mavericks were getting shocked by Golden State in the first round of last spring's playoffs, the public never knew that Nowitzki's father, Jorg, was undergoing surgery in Dallas.
Six months later, with the Mavericks commencing the 2007-08 season tonight at Cleveland, Nowitzki didn't mention his father's surgery during a lengthy sit-down interview for this story. The topic surfaced during subsequent interviews with his family and friends.
"It was not easy for him to deal with the pressure of the playoffs and my dad's surgery at the same time," Dirk's sister Silke e-mailed from the family's hometown of Würzburg, Germany. "But Dirk is good at being able to focus on his game when he is on the court."
Silke said her parents prefer not to disclose specifics about the surgery, but she did say Jorg, 64, "is doing a lot better now" back in Würzburg. "He changed his lifestyle and even stopped smoking after 50 years."
Perhaps Dirk didn't want the slightest whiff of excuse in the air after the Golden State debacle, during which he shot 38 percent and averaged 19.7 points, nearly five below his season average.
Nothing he could have said or done would have lessened the ache after 67-win Dallas' historic ouster, or made the MVP trophy ceremony two weeks later feel less hollow.
Or maybe he figured his father's health fell into the "nobody's business" category – like last week, when a Morning News reporter asked Nowitzki whether his two-story, 5,500-square-foot Highland Park home is clean or messy.
"What kind of question is that?" he cackled. He had started the interview by teasing, "If you are going to be part of my life today, watch me eat and go home and take a nap."
Re-energized
Nowitzki, 29, seems relaxed and ready for his 10th NBA season, crediting a two-month summer stretch during which he didn't touch a basketball.
Dirk's Excellent Adventure included several weeks of backpacking through Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti. He entered clean-shaven and "fed up with basketball" and emerged with a monk-like beard and cleansed mind.
It was his first extended break from the sport since he was selected ninth in the 1998 NBA draft, five days after his 20th birthday.
He packed a towel for his first trip to Dallas because he wasn't sure one would be provided during his stay at then-Mavericks coach Don Nelson's home.
At the time, he earned about $1,100 a month from his club team in Würzburg and drove a Volkswagen. He earned $1.47 million during his rookie NBA year, but because it was a lockout-shortened season, common sense told him to rent a car, a Plymouth.
"Every time I pulled up, the boys [teammates] would be killing me, 'Get a car!' " he laughed.
His father owned a Mercedes, so one of his few ambitions was to get one. He indulged with an E-class in his second season and now drives a new two-door CL63.
Though he could afford a fleet with his $16.3 million salary, his only other ride is the Denali he gets for doing commercials for a local dealership.
"Other than that, I don't buy fancy watches or rings," he said. "I don't need all of that. Obviously, it's awesome to know that I don't have to worry about it ever in my life again. I can do whatever I want, really, and my family will be fine."
Though he is entering the final season of a six-year, $79 million contract, he already has signed a three-year, $59 million extension that kicks in next year.
But while some pro athletes have sizable entourages, the tightness and makeup of Nowitzki's inner circle has changed little during the last decade.
Rather than hire an agent, he uses longtime personal coach and friend Holger Geschwindner to negotiate his contracts. Silke, who is four years older than Dirk, used to work for the NBA but moved back to Würzburg two years ago and oversees Dirk's Germany-based charitable foundation.
Silke's husband, Roland, helps with Dirk's Web site. They raise 2-year-old son Lenny in the house Dirk owns in Würzburg, though when he goes back, he usually stays with his parents.
Dirk says his mother, Helga, does some of his investing back home and signs off on the bills.
"She's still the man," Dirk laughed. "If I want some money over the summer in Germany, I've got to go to ask her to get some."
A 'second mother'
Well-chronicled is Nowitzki's friendship with Phoenix guard Steve Nash, a Mavericks teammate from 1999 to 2004.
Also well-known is Dirk's friendship with Al Whitley, whom he met through Nash. Whitley is entering his seventh season with the Mavericks and fourth as equipment manager.
But did you know that one of Nowitzki's closest friends in Dallas is a 50-year-old mom of three adult kids? Well, four if you count Dirk.
"She does everything for me," he said. "She's like my second mother."
She is Lisa Tyner, the Mavericks' senior accountant and payroll manager. She has been with the franchise for 25 years. She was among the first people Dirk met when he arrived in 1998, helping him get his visa.
When his parents visited during Christmas 1999, they discovered their 7-foot son was sleeping catty-corner on a twin bed in his West Village apartment. In the corner of one room was a several-foot stack of mail, including unpaid bills and uncashed checks.
"Can you please help my son?" Helga asked Tyner.
Even players who attend college for several years have trouble transitioning to the NBA lifestyle. Nowitzki went from high school to a mandatory 10-month stint in the German army to the NBA and a country he barely knew.
"He's bright and sweet and kind," Tyner said. "His parents did a great job. But he had never lived on his own, and I don't think he had ever written English. So he would bring in his checks to make sure he wrote the right words."
He now pays many of his bills online but spends so little time in Dallas that life's little things pile up. And now he gets fan mail from around the world.
Tyner works out of the Mavericks' administrative office, which is not at American Airlines Center. When he is in town, Nowitzki stops by at least once a week. Tyner said he answers fan mail personally. Tyner is treasurer of his U.S.-based charitable foundation, which is separate from the one in Germany.
"He doesn't have any family here," Tyner said. "So sometimes, he just comes in to say hi."
Three weeks ago, Nowitzki showed up at Tyner's surprise birthday party in Waxahachie. When his family members visit each Christmas, Dirk takes them to the Tyners for a home-cooked dinner, or both families go to a restaurant.
Such evenings are rare for Dirk in Dallas. He doesn't cook and several years ago all but gave up on eating out. When Nash's Suns played in Dallas last year, he and Nowitzki attempted to go to their old lunchtime spot, Eatzi's. Dozens of fans were waiting.
Nowitzki used to go to Eatzi's and other take-home places to stock up. No more.
"Left and right, while I was trying to get my pasta, oh, it was a mess. Obviously, sometimes you wish you could go somewhere by yourself, but those days are over. Even in Australia, people recognized me. But obviously it's a compliment, too. People know and respect what you do for a living."
He has adapted. During Christmas 2004, he bought a five-bedroom Highland Park home. He said he did it so his family and Geschwindner wouldn't have to stay in hotels when they visited. During the season, Geschwindner comes every six weeks or so.
Tyner used to make grocery trips to stock what little food was in the house. But last season, Nowitzki hired a chef, whom he identifies only as Matt.
After the Mavericks blew a 2-0 lead and lost the 2006 NBA Finals to Miami, Nowitzki "decided to drown my sorrows for a little bit, for like two or three weeks." Then he went to Germany to prepare for the World Championships. "I felt like I was 50 years old," he said.
He decided to cut pork, sugar and white flour from his diet, so he hired Matt to shop for and prepare organic meals in Nowitzki's home. All Dirk has to do is warm them up. He has since added back to his diet some white flour and sugar, realizing he needs calories and carbohydrates for games.
Most Mavericks live in North Dallas or the suburbs, but when Nowitzki went house hunting he wanted to remain near downtown. That is largely because he works out each night for at least an hour, often using his card key to use the team's facilities inside AAC.
Spread around the fringes of Nowitzki's den, within viewing range of two flat-screen TVs, are an exercise bike, a gymnastics ball and a mechanism that strengthens his problematic ankles.
"That's what athletes do, work out," he said when asked why he stacks a personal regimen atop daily Mavericks practices and 100-plus games a season.
Finding sanctuary
He politely declined a Morning News request for a photo shoot at his home. It is one of his few remaining sanctuaries, along with Würzburg. And road trip dinners.
For the last five or six seasons, Nowitzki and a handful of Mavericks employees have made a tradition of dining together on the road.
There have been variations, but the principals are Nowitzki, Whitley, head trainer Casey Smith, assistant trainer Dionne Calhoun, director of communications Sarah Melton, communications manager Scott Tomlin and director of security Jim Colleran.
"What is an entourage?" Nowitzki once asked. Smith laughed and pointed around the table.
They have favorite restaurants in each city, know what one another will order and talk little basketball. The nonmillionaires conspire ways to pay the bill before Nowitzki can snatch it. "Small victories," Melton calls the rare successes.
"Obviously, life in the States has shaped him," Silke e-mailed when asked whether her brother has been Americanized in any way. "I think he is now very comfortable in both cultures and likes to mix in English expressions when he speaks German."
She and her family stay with Dirk a couple of weeks a year, usually in December and January. The first time she saw his home, Silke was surprised at how well-furnished it was.
No sweat, Nowitzki said. He accompanied an interior designer to "that huge building off 35" and "got all hooked up in a couple of hours." He said that even as a teenager he never went to malls because "I always thought shopping was for girls."
Tyner's main concern was that he get an extra-long California king-sized bed, though she winced when he insisted on keeping a holdover from his apartment. "It's the ugliest couch I've ever seen, but he's partial to it."
The couch and a recliner are the only furniture in his pingpong room. "Got to have it," he said of the table. "I haven't lost in the house yet. I'm huge at home."
Tyner said she was proud of Dirk after hearing recently that part of his house flooded because of a backed-up drain. Rather than call Tyner, he found repair people himself.
Unfortunately, the water got into his shoe room, ruining many of his pairs. There can be no other name for the room because its sole contents are shoe racks and a couple hundred pairs of shoes, mostly sneakers sent to him free by Nike. Each Christmas, his parents take several dozen pair back to Germany to be auctioned for charity.
A couple of years ago, a new NBA dress code forced Nowitzki to buy suits, and he admits he now enjoys decking out occasionally. He loves ties, but it wasn't until last year that a clothes salesman taught him how to tie one.
Nowitzki turns 30 in June, a month during which he hopes the Mavericks also will win their first NBA title.
When alone, he reads German novels, plays the guitar and saxophone and contemplates things he wouldn't have imagined at 20.
"Like what's coming after basketball. I haven't really come to any conclusions, but I'm sure I'm going to stick around basketball some. Basketball has always been my life."
Wife, kids?
"When I was growing up, I always said I don't want to marry before I'm 30. I'm still on track.
"I always leave the future open, but obviously I don't want to be a 40- or 45-year-old [new] dad, so I'm sure in the next five or six years, something's going to happen."
Private life is private
So why didn't he mention his father's surgery last spring? Last week, The News arranged for a follow-up interview to ask him.
Nowitzki's affability disappeared. Clearly, he was disappointed.
"Let's not even write about it," he said.
It was pointed out that a couple of people in his inner circle had already discussed it, saying that Dirk had arranged to have J?rg brought here to get the best care.
Silke said she believes the surgery occurred on April 30, which would have been between Games 4 and 5 of the Golden State series.
But Dirk said his parents attended the 118-112 Game 5 win in Dallas, when he scored 12 points during a 15-0 run to close the game. All he would say about the surgery was that it occurred while the team was in Oakland for the series-ending Game 6, with Dirk phoning back for updates. And that the organization was well aware of the situation.
"We all go through stuff in our lives," he said. "But obviously people pay a lot of money to see us play that night. They don't care what's going on in your life. They want to see you perform. We understand that.
"That's why personal stuff is private and once you step on the court, it's secondary and we've got to learn how to play through stuff."
Had he or someone in his inner circle said something last spring, might the media and fan criticism of him been less harsh?
"That's all right," he said. "I've got big shoulders."
<3 Dirk
Go Mavericks in 07-08