After 10 years of constantly playing for Germany Dirk Nowitzki won’t be a part of the national team this summer.

No one in Germany is complaining about that because Dirk was always willing to spend his summers playing with old friends instead of just lying on the beach and be lazy during the off-season. If one just thinks about the long, exhausting NBA season with 80-100 games Dirk has to play between November and May/June and you see that hardly any other NBA player is playing for his national team each and every summer on can’t praise Dirk’s effort high enough.

Nowitzki even turned 31 this summer and you don’t need to be a medical scientist to realise that his body needs the summers now to regenerate more than ever.

The Dallas Maverick also had planned to marry his fiancé this summer, but as we all know thanks to the gossip press this issue has sorted itself out.

So Dirk really intended to play the European championship this summer, but Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban refused to let him play. Cuban allowed Dirk to follow his big dream of playing the Olympics for many years. Now that he has been there last year, Cuban reminded Nowitzki of a promise he gave to sit out the next summer – and Dirk accepted that.

No one knows if Nowitzki will come back next summer or if he has already played his last game for the national team.

Many people saw in Germany a one-man-team. “If Nowitzki would not play for them, they would not even deserve to be in the tournament”, thought many fans and observers during the last few years.

This summer we will see how competitive the german national team can be without Dirk.

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