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Dirk Nowitzki had had enough of basketball. Immediately after his glamorous farewell from the NBA stage, there was only wife Jessica and the three children with whom the German superstar explored the world.
"When I was travelling, I didn't watch the results - not even of the Mavs' games," he says today: "I just had to get away from it." But now he's back as a TV pundit. In the first two years after his retirement in 2019, Nowitzki told The Stein Line he didn't watch NBA games at all. Instead, the family discovered Nowitzki's wife's roots in Sweden and Kenya and visited his German homeland. "It was a fun couple of years," said the 2011 NBA champion: "But I also think that interest in basketball has grown again from year to year."
Now "the tall blonde" is making his comeback in front of an audience of millions when he will be an analyst for the NBA games on Prime Video from the 2025/2026 season. A new career will begin for the 46-year-old. There has long been speculation as to which path Nowitzki would take in the future.
Questions about a coaching career came up often, and his friend Steve Nash once even wanted Nowitzki to be an assistant with the Brooklyn Nets. Nowitzki declined the opportunity, not ready to return to the NBA arenas just one year after his active career. Instead, he enjoyed life with his family, took care of social projects and dropped in on the 2023 Basketball World Cup or the Olympics in Paris - but otherwise kept a low profile, including as an advisor to the Mavs, which he has been since 2021. After all, 20 years of basketball on the NBA hamster wheel had taken their toll.
Nowitzki was almost 41 years old when he retired, and his body had already been causing increasing problems in the season before his retirement. After an NBA championship, the 2007 MVP title and 14 All-Star Game appearances, the time had come for him. “It was getting harder and harder to keep up, and I felt like it wasn't fun anymore, what I had to go through just to end up playing," Nowitzki said. But the fun has long since returned.
He now watches all Dallas games when he can, said Nowitzki, who even played together with German Maximilian Kleber and superstar Luka Doncic. "My kids are also starting to watch more and get excited about the NBA," said Nowitzki, "so it's natural for me to sit with them and watch even more." And soon they will be able to marvel at their dad on TV again, this time in a suit instead of a Mavs jersey.
