Every season's end, Dallas Mavericks star forward Dirk Nowitzki retreats in a small, hot gym in his home town in Germany together with his long time mentor and personal coach, Holger Geschwindner, to work on improving his game. This summer, Nowitzki has worked on enhancing his jump shot (as if its not already perfect) 17 years into his NBA career and so far it has paid tremendous dividends in terms of shooting efficiency early in the season.
While it has only been four games, Dirk's shooting has been so sweet that ESPNDallas's Tim MacMahon has made a prediction that Dirk Nowitzki will put up the best shooting percentages of his career this season. And Macmahon may be right as the Big German's shooting numbers have been stellar thus far:
The Mavs lead the league in scoring, with Nowitzki averaging a team-high 20.8 points per game, shooting 57.9 percent from the floor and 42.9 percent from 3-point range. The best field goal percentage of his career was 51.7 in 2010-11; his best 3-point percentage was 42.1 in 2009-10.
Against Boston on Monday, Dirk started the game 5-for-5 for 16 points, including 4-4 from beyond the arc. It was all Dirk with sweat, blood - their was a portion in the game where he was bleeding - and a ton of threes, dominating the game with deadly accuracy.
But Nowitzki's impressive shooting percentages can also be attributed on how the Mavs roster has been structured this season. The team has surrounded him with guys like Monta Ellis, Devin Harris, and Chandler Parsons, who can slice to the basket and kick the ball out to Nowtizki for a wide open jump shot. With the current Mavs, the quality of his looks will be much better and the burden on him to create his own offense will be much less than in recent seasons.
"We're trying to get everybody good looks," Carlisle said. "When you have attackers around him, it makes it a little easier to move him into open areas off of random play."
And the 2014-15 NBA season might just be Dirk Nowtiki's best shooting percentage in his 17 years in the NBA.
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