Over the years, Dirk Nowitzki has cemented his status as one of the most unguaradable players in NBA history. There have been better scorers, and there have been better shooters, but Nowitzki is second-to-none when it comes to getting his shot off.
It would be easy to peg Nowitzki’s 7-foot frame as the sole reason for that, but that’s selling him short. Nowitzki’s ability to shift his weight back to create the proper trajectory for that high-arcing jumper requires an unreal amount of coordination and balance. It’s a move born from an unusual training regimen based around taking shots from less than ideal angles and situations, and there’s nothing textbook about it.
And that’s fine. Dirk Nowitzki didn’t create the fadeaway, and he didn’t master it. He changed it.
This isn’t a move that’s easily adapted or stolen. Go try it in your driveway, and you will travel and airball your way to a frustrating time.
There’s a reason why this particular iteration of the fadeaway jumper has been unique to Nowitzki all these years, but there is one player in the league with the right chops to forge Nowitzki’s signature move. And he might be the only guy who can do it justice.
This is sort of the circle of life in the NBA. Iconic moves only belong to a player for so long, and then someone else takes it and changes it or improves it. Michael Jordan’s turnaround jumper became Kobe Bryant’s turnaround jumper. It’s just the way these things work.
That learning curve on Dirk’s unique one-legged fadeaway is a steep one, but here’s what Kevin Durant said about trying to adopt it for his game in a recent interview with The Oklahoman:“It was rougher than I thought it was going to be (early on),” Durant said. “Took me some time to figure it out, but I think I’m doing all right with it.”
At this point, with such a diverse offensive toolbox, it’s a move Durant doesn’t typically use more than once every game.
But it’s clearly one of his favorites.
“Just the space it gives you and how it looks,” Durant said. “It just frees you up when you’re kinda pressured. You don’t think you have a shot, then you just step back and knock it down.”
Nowitzki probably won’t be in the league too much longer. He’ll be hanging his sneakers up in a few years, and the league will miss him desperately.
But we’ll still have Durant. And even though it will never look exactly the same, we’ll always remember the player who once owned that beautiful fadeaway whenever we see him unleash it.
-D.J. Foster
Generally not a fan of proposing to your lady at a sporting event (trust me, she’s not either) but if you’re going to do it, the inflatable mascot trick is a good one.
Knicks 113, Nets 93: Who’s a laughingstock now? You figure at some point one of the New York teams is going to figure it out and go on enough of a run to win the Atlantic Division (getting to .500 should do it) and Thursday night it looked like the Knicks will be that team. They played with energy — I swear Carmelo Anthony was hustling on defense — and they exposed the Nets league-worst defense for being old and slow. Carmelo Anthony had 19 points and 10 rebounds, Iman Shumpert had 17 points on 8 shots, and the Knicks cruised.
Clippers 101, Grizzlies 81: This was close through a sloppy first half, then Los Angeles went on a 22-5 run in the third quarter and pulled away for a comfortable win. The Clippers played much better defense than the night before, holding Memphis to 37.7 percent shooting, although a chunk of that was execution errors on the part of Memphis (which really misses Marc Gasol). Chris Paul and Jordan Crawford each had 15 points to lead a balanced attack.
Bulls 107, Heat 87: When the Bulls play aggressive defense like they did Thursday they can beat anybody. They hadn’t played this well since Derrick Rose went down but the defense was back and drove Chris Bosh to a terrible 4-of-11 game, held LeBron James in check and stymied he Heat offense. On the other end Carlos Boozer (27 points) and Joakim Noah (17 points, 15 rebounds) led the attack on the inside that the Heat could not stop.