Dirk Nowitzki Announces He Will Return for 21st Season with Dallas Mavericks

The Dirk Nowitzki era is not over yet after the future Hall of Famer confirmed he will return for his 21st season next year.

Despite grinding through game after game for 20 consecutive grueling seasons, Dirk Nowitzki has more in the tank. Moments before the Mavs took the floor against the similarly lottery-bound Phoenix Suns, Nowitzki made his intentions for next season clear to reporters:

“The plan is still to come back and work towards another season.” Nowitzki, who is concluding his 20th season with the Mavs tonight, is cementing himself as one of the longest lasting superstars in NBA history.

While he is not nearly the player he was earlier in his 30’s, Nowitzki is surprisingly still a fairly efficient scorer despite rapidly approaching the so called “cliff” attributed to athletes who enter their 40’s. Nowitzki will begin the offseason by rehabbing his left ankle after he had a minor procedure on it that ended his season.

For the Mavericks, the obvious hope is that they can send Nowitzki off in better fashion than is expected. It is no secret that the team is in a full scale rebuild, but this upcoming season should be a much more fitting finish for the big German.

Nowitzki seemed confident in his ability to make it through another eighty-two game season. “Didn’t miss a lot of games this year, I felt fine most of the time.” Nowitzki’s durability is unmatched for seven-footers as he has largely avoided injuries altogether throughout his illustrious career.

Nowitzki signed a two-year contract with the Mavs last summer and has consistently made it clear that he wants to play out the remainder of that deal. “I always said all year that I want to fulfill that two-year contract if possible and I saw nothing that was going to stop it.”

Nowitzki will join a small list of players who have played 21 or more seasons in the NBA. Robert Parish was the first to play 21 seasons in the league, before Kevin Willis ended his twenty-three year career as a Maverick. Kevin Garnett is the only other player in the history of the game to reach 21 seasons.

At least for the time being, the Dirk Nowitzki era has one more year left. The Mavs are going through a bizarre stretch both on and off the court, but the face of the franchise will be back for one more rodeo.

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Nowitzki’s meaning to the franchise cannot be quantified, and Mavs fans will have one more season to watch the greatest European player in NBA history knock down a couple more fadeaway jumpers.