Dirk Nowitzki is a slow man and not ashamed of it

Apr 25, 2016; Oklahoma City, OK, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook (0) drives to the basket between Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki (41) an dDallas Mavericks guard Justin Anderson (1) during the third quarter in game five of the first round of the NBA Playoffs at Chesapeake Energy Arena. Mandatory Credit: Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports
Apr 25, 2016; Oklahoma City, OK, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook (0) drives to the basket between Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki (41) an dDallas Mavericks guard Justin Anderson (1) during the third quarter in game five of the first round of the NBA Playoffs at Chesapeake Energy Arena. Mandatory Credit: Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports /
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It’s been kind of a slow day on the internet. Summer is a slow time for basketball fans. There’s not a whole lot going on in September. The Olympics are over. The next season is still more than a month away. Players are resting, or training, or sending their kids to school. Highlights of last season are starting to get stale. So is that sandwich that I have in the fridge. I should do something about that with my mouth. I have some laundry to do as well. Maybe I can slow cook some beef. Maybe not. That involves effort. It’s like life is in a permanent state of buffering. This is ennui. Ennui is a weird word. Words are weird. Words. Sigh. I wonder what Dirk Nowitzki is doing on Twitter.

It’s nice that he has a sense of humor about himself. In fact, Dirk just seems like a nice guy. The type of guy you could spend a lazy Saturday afternoon with. No plans. No anything.

He’s kind of right, though. Below is a video of Dirk Nowitzki running at full speed.

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I can hear tires screeching in my head, except it sounds more like molasses being poured out of a five gallon tub. Or whatever sound glass makes as it collects to the bottom of a windowsill over the course of a few hundred years. I think that’s the doppler effect at work.

But Dirk has never really been quick. He is unlikely to get quicker. So using science, I decided to graph out what his velocity might be over time.

Dirk is kinda slow.
Dirk is kinda slow. /

My apologies that the GIF goes so slowly. It’s kind of just a hypnotic, laconic step. The thing about things that are slow is that eventually they come to a stop.