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Signature shot: Breaking down how Dirk Nowitzki's one-legged fadeaway has beaten defenders for decades

/Michael Hogue/Staff Artist


Old German basketball legends never die, they just fadeaway.

OK, now that we've made that bad play on words -- and we know Dirk Nowitzki would appreciate it -- if ever a player was associated with one revolutionary shot in the NBA, Nowitzki's one-legged, step-back fadeaway is it.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had the skyhook. But nobody else could do it with any measure of success, so it never caught on as a weapon for the masses.

The Dream Shake? Hakeem Olajuwon perfected it and never gave the public any secrets about how to make it work.