The list of accomplishments for Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki continues to grow longer. After winning his first NBA championship last year, he’s done just about everything a player can hope to accomplish during his career. And while he’s never won a single-season scoring title, he has now moved into 20th on the all-time NBA career scoring list. Yesterday during the first quarter of the Mavs’ game against the Boston Celtics, Nowitzki scored his 23,335th point, moving him past Robert Parish and into the top 20.
This definitely won’t be the final stop for Dirk on the list. While he has slowed down a little bit, he’s not done yet. Barring any unforeseen injury, he should climb up a few more rungs on that ladder.
We know he’s one of the best scorers ever, but where does he rank among the all-time greats as an all-around player? I don’t think I’ll get any arguments that he’s the best European player to ever play in the NBA. Best international player ever might be a stretch, but he’s definitely in the top 3, maybe 2nd behind Hakeem Olajuwon. The Houston Rockets big man from Nigeria was a defensive beast as well as a scorer.
Overall, it’s extremely tough to rank different players from different eras, and even different positions, but it wouldn’t be hard to make an argument for Dirk Nowitzki as a top 20 player all time. The guy is an All-Star and an All-NBA player every year, he’s been a regular season MVP and a Finals MVP, he’s an NBA champion and he leads his team all-time in a long list of stats.
You can make all kinds of arguments about where the German 7-footer ranks all time, but one thing is for sure, we’ll definitely see a few more accomplishments from Dirk Nowitzki before his career comes to a close.
