Dirk Nowitzki further solidified his Hall of Fame legacy on Tuesday night by becoming the sixth player in NBA history to reach 30,000 career points. The Dallas Mavericks legend came into his team’s home game against the Los Angeles needing 20 points to achieve the feat and did so with just under 11 minutes remaining in the second quarter with one of his patented fadeaway jumpers.
The Mavericks announced Dirk’s achievement and played a career highlight package on the video board roughly a minute later after a Lakers timeout. Naturally, L.A. called timeout because Nowitzki had bested them again with a contested 3-pointer from the top of the circle.
Mark Cuban got pretty emotional about it all during the break, as well:
— nick (@nick_pants) March 8, 2017
The achievement comes in Nowitzki’s 19th season and marks yet another milestone in the story of the best European–born player ever to suit up in the NBA. He is the league’s leading active scorer following Kobe Bryant’s retirement last season and will end his career as one of the best offensive players the league’s ever seen, no matter what he does before retirement. Anyone on a list with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, and Wilt Chamblerlain is a legend. (Julius Erving has also topped 30,000 points, if you include his ABA stats.)
Frankly, Nowitzki hit the 30,000 mark faster than most expected on Tuesday. He scored 14 points in his first six-minute stretch of playing time before heading to the bench and finished the first quarter with 18 points on 6-of-7 shooting. It was the most points Dirk had scored in a period since January 2014. For that matter, he had only scored more than 18 points seven times previously in the 2016-17 season.
It is entirely possible that this milestone will be the final major achievement of Nowitzki’s career. He is roughly 1,400 points behind Wilt for No. 5 on the all-time scoring list and may opt to retire at the end of this season.
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