Editor's Note: This story was originally published on June 16, 2016. With Father's Day less than a month away, SportsDay is taking a look at Dirk, the dad.
Dirk Nowitzki had long wanted children. He thought he would be great with them, being a fun-loving, 7-foot lunk of a kid himself.
Responsible? He'd long been the rock of the Mavericks franchise, fiercely shepherding it an improbable NBA title. He'd even been his country's Olympic flag bearer.
Nowitzki and his wife Jessica weren't prepared, though, for the emotions that hit them on that late July 2013 day when they buckled newborn daughter Malaika into her car seat and drove away from the hospital, as a family, for the first time.