The Great Nowitzki
The Great Nowitzki Zusatzmaterial
The Great Nowitzki Zusatzmaterial

The Great Nowitzki. Basketball and the Meaning of Life

  • A journey into the mindset of a historic basketball superstar, and the importance of his landmark career
  • English translation published by W.W. Norton in March 2022
  • Chinese sample translation available
  • Including Photos by Tobias Zielony

A journey into the mindset of a historic basketball superstar, and the importance of his landmark career

The seven-foot Dirk Nowitzki is one of the greatest players in basketball history. The Dallas Maverick’s legend revolutionized the sport, redefining the role of the big man in the modern game. Dirk moved differently: flexible and fast, confident and in control. He thought differently, too. On the court, his shots were masterful—none more venerated than his signature one-legged flamingo fadeaway, a move that lives on in the repertoire of today’s most skilled NBA players.

How did this lanky kid from the German suburbs become an all-time top ten scorer and NBA champion? How can a superstar stay so humble? Award-winning novelist and sportswriter Thomas Pletzinger spent over seven years traveling with Nowitzki. He witnessed Dirk’s summer workouts, involving fingertip pushups and the study of the physics, and spent days discussing literature and philosophy with Holger Geschwindner, Dirk’s enigmatic mentor and coach. Watching Nowitzki in empty gyms and in packed arenas with 30,000 fans, Pletzinger began to understand how Dirk and Holger’s philosophical insights on performance, creativity, and freedom enabled his success and longevity.

The Great Nowitzki tells Dirk’s dramatic story like never before. Pletzinger describes Dirk’s youth in small-town Germany, follows the steep learning curve of Dirk’s early seasons, the devastating Finals loss to the Miami Heat, and the triumphant championship five years later. Traveling with Dirk in his final seasons, Pletzinger immerses himself in the community of people impacted by Nowitzki’s game, interviewing everyone from average fans in Dallas and security guards at the arena to front office executives and Hall of Fame teammates, who reflect on what Dirk’s career means to the next generation of ballplayers. And to the game itself.

A masterpiece of sports writing that reads like a novel, The Great Nowitzki brims with a fan’s passion. Pletzinger shows how strongly basketball influences our imagination and the extraordinary journey an icon like Dirk Nowitzki must take to reach the pinnacle of the game.

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China: under negotiation / Russia: Eksmo / Taiwan: Infortress / USA: Norton (World English) 

  • Publisher: Kiepenheuer&Witsch
  • Release: 22.08.2019
  • 512 pages
  • ISBN: 978-3-462-04732-5
Cover Download The Great Nowitzki
The Great Nowitzki
Juliane Henrich

Thomas Pletzinger

Thomas Pletzinger, born in 1975, grew up in the basketball city of Hagen and spent his entire youth in gyms. Not quite destined for a career in pro sports, he instead dedicated himself to American studies in Hamburg and at the German Institute for Literature in Leipzig. His debut novel, Bestattung eines Hundes (Funeral for a Dog), came out in 2008. Subsequently, for his nonfiction book Gentlemen, wir leben am Abgrund (Gentlemen, We’re Living on the Edge) (2012), he followed the pro players of the German basketball club Alba Berlin. He recently won the Comic Book Award of the Berthold Leibinger Foundation and a work grant from the German Literature Fund. He lives with his wife and three daughters in Berlin and works as an author, journalist and translator.

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