I was eleven years old when Dirk Nowitzki was drafted. On the Sunday after the Dallas Mavericks selected him, I asked my dad on the drive home from church who they’d taken. “I don’t know,” he answered. “Some German guy. I don’t know what they were doing.” Twenty-one years later, it turns out the Mavericks knew exactly what they were doing. My dad and I would go on to share some of our best memories as father and son watching Dirk Nowitzki play basketball.
I’m not sure where things began to turn in NBA fandom, but it feels like no one really hates on anyone anymore.