The son of elite athletes — father Jörg-Werner represented Germany as an international handball player, while mother Helga played basketball professionally -— Nowitzki turned pro himself at 16 years old with the local club in his hometown of Wurzburg. Nowitzki retired in 2019 as the fifth-leading scorer in NBA history with 31,560 career points. While he has since been bumped down to sixth place by LeBron James, his total remains the most for any foreign-born player in NBA history by nearly 5,000 points. Career Arguably the greatest shooting 7-footer of all time with career percentages of 47.4% from midrange, 38% on 3-pointers and 87.9% at the foul line. He remains one of just eight players to shoot better than 50% overall, 40% on 3-pointers and 90% at the line in a season. Nowitzki was particularly known for his trademark one-legged fadeway, a shot admirers such as Kevin Durant and Luka Doncic have incorporated into their arsenal. Dirk famously played all 21 seasons with the Mavericks, an NBA record for any player with one team. The Mavericks made the playoffs in 15 of those campaigns after qualifying in just six of their previous 20 seasons. Nowitzki led the Mavericks to their lone championship in 2011, scoring at least 21 points in every game as they upset the heavily-favored Miami Heat in six games. Nowitzki averaged 26.0 ppg and 9.7 rpg to join Hakeem Olajuwon and Tony Parker as the only foreign players to win Finals MVP. (The group has since grown to include Milwaukee's Giannis Antetokounmpo.) He became the first European player to win NBA MVP, doing so in the 2006-07 season after averaging 24.6 ppg and 8.9 rpg as the Mavericks won a team-record 67 games. In his storied career with the Mavs, Nowitzki set Dallas career records in points, rebounds (11,489), 3-pointers (1,982), blocks (1,281), field goals (11,169) and games played (1,522). Of the seven NBA players with at least 30,000 career points, only Nowitzki, James and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar also reached 10,000 rebounds, 3,000 assists, 1,000 steals and 1,000 blocks. The others in the 30,000-point club are: Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Wilt Chamberlain and Karl Malone.