Dallas Basketball

Mavs Legend Dirk Nowitzki to Have National Team Jersey Retired at EuroBasket 2022

Dirk Nowitzki has been retired from basketball for three years now, but the recognition for his legendary career will continue in international play this summer.

Dalton Trigg

In January, the Dallas Mavericks immortalized Dirk Nowitzki's No. 41 by retiring it into the American Airlines Center rafters. In September, Nowitzki will receive international recognition for his legendary career, as the German national team will retire his No. 14 at EuroBasket 2022.

Nowitzki will become the first German national team player to ever have his number retired.

"So I played with No. 14 in Germany. When I actually started playing basketball, I had No. 11, and then I saw Charles Barkley wearing No. 14 in the Olympics in '92 in Barcelona," Nowitzki explained to NBA.com. 

"And I loved Charles at the time as well, so I switched to No. 14. I was actually going to take No. 14 in Dallas, but Robert Pack, at the time, had No. 14, and he didn't want to give the number up to a rookie. So then I ended up flipping the numbers and it became No. 41."

Mavs fans already had plenty of reasons to be excited about EuroBasket play. Luka Doncic will lead Slovenia as they look to defend their EuroBasket title from 2017, second-year Maverick Frank Ntilikina will be playing for France, and the latest two-way contract signee, Tyler Dorsey, is suiting up with Giannis Antetokounmpo and Greece.

Now, we all get the added pleasure of witnessing another Nowitzki jersey retirement. The German national team has its work cut out for them, though, because it’s going to be hard to beat the show Mavs owner Mark Cuban put on for Nowitzki earlier this year.

You can follow Dalton Trigg on Twitter at @dalton_trigg

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Dalton Trigg
DALTON TRIGG

Dalton Trigg is the Editor-In-Chief for Dallas Basketball, as well as the Executive Editor overseeing Inside The Rockets, Inside The Spurs, All Knicks, and The Magic Insider. He is the founder and host for the Mavs Step Back Podcast, which is a proud part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Trigg graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi’s College of Business and Economic Development with a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship in 2016. After spending a few years with multiple Dallas Mavericks-related blogs, including SB Nation’s Mavs Moneyball, Trigg joined DallasBasketball.com as a staff writer in 2018 and never looked back. At the start of 2022, he was promoted to the EIC title he holds now. Through the years, Trigg has conducted a handful of high-profile one-on-one interviews to add to his resume — in both writing and podcasting. Some of his biggest interviews have been with Mavs owner Mark Cuban, Mavs GM Nico Harrison, now-retired legend Dirk Nowitzki and many other current/former players and team staffers. Many of those interviews and other articles by Trigg have been aggregated by other well-known sports media websites, such as Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report and others. You can find Trigg on all major social media channels, but his most prevalent platform is on Twitter. Whether it’s posting links to his DBcom work, live-tweeting Mavs games or merely giving his opinions on things going on with Dallas and the rest of the NBA, the daily content never stops rolling. For any inquiries, please email Dalton@MavsStepBack.com.

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