I believe one of the major signs of a champion is the ability to take your game up an extra notch in the play offs. I don?t think any player this year has taken their game to another level the way Dirk Nowitzki has. So far he has up his season avg?s in the play offs by: 7pts a game / total is 30.5 5rbs a game / total is 15 2stls a game / total is 3 1blk a game / total is 2 He has done all of this with only 4 extra minutes a game. What else is so impressive with his numbers is that he has added the rebounds against the best rebounding team in the NBA. His extra numbers have come against someone that many people believe is the best PF in the league?KG. Dirk for whatever reason has out played KG in this series. What is really hard to believe is that Dirk is avging 30.5 pts a game against KG during the play offs while KG has only scored better than 26 pts in a game once during his entire play off career. I am ready to say it if no one else is?Dirk is now at least the 3rd best player in basketball behind only Shaq and Duncan and he may be the most versatile player in the game with the ability to play sf, pf and c all at an all star level. I don?t know if it will happen this year but there is little doubt in my mind that Dirk will win a championship during his career. I don?t think you can say that about some of the other more highly publicized players in the NBA: Vince Carter Kevin Garnett Allen Iverson Just to name a few. We all saw the NBA propaganda machine slight Dream for years because he played in Houston or because his English was not good enough or because he was from another country. The NBA instead chose to promote players that were inferior to Dream like Barkley, Ewing, Robinson and even Pippen got more pub than Dream with the NBA claiming that he (pippen) might be the best player in the game after MJ retired the first time, yeah right. Shaq and his big toe will be out of the league in a couple of years and then the two best players will be Dirk and Duncan but neither will get the pub of some of the flashier players mentioned above, but the titles will go to them.
It has only been two games so far, but I hope Dirk can keep it up. I like him more as a person than Detlef Schrempf, because he seems to be more humble, but at the same time have more fire and killer instinct. I also think that he will win a championship one day. Fantastic post, by the way .
Vince averaged 31 points, 6 assists, 6 rebounds on 47% shooting vs the Sixers in 7 games last year. Philly was one of the best defensive teams last year too, people hate on Vince lately but he's been hurt the entire year, people forget how good he was when he was healthy
The problem with Vince last year is that he completly vanished in several play off games before he really started turning it on. Maybe it was the play off jitters and he will become a dominant player in the play offs from now on (once he is healthy). I don't think it is fair to judge Vince on his play off performance this year because of his injuries. The thing that impresses me about Dirk is that he has turned his game up a notch in both of his play off years so far. He also seems to have that certain undefinable quality that the really great players have.
