NBA Powerless Rankings: Dirk Nowitzki’s attempts at defense

https://twitter.com/PeteBlackburn/status/932821361193517056

5. Right over

Welcome to the world of sadness. Put on your sad pads because it’s about to get real sad.

I’m not saying any of what you’re about to see (or have already seen) is unexpected. It’s a fact of life. People get older. When people get older, they get slower. Have you ever seen a dead person? They barely move.

We’ve been over this before. A year ago I made a handy graph to show where Dirk Nowitzki was then and where Dirk might be in the future in terms of speed to age. Here’s a refresher in case you don’t have the image glued to the back of your mind.

It’s a shame, really, It looks like he’s jumped right past liquid wasps to Adam Sandler Movie Marathon.

Dirk never really was a great defender. Even at the points in his life when he wasn’t considered “old” or “a liability” or “made of dust and cobwebs” there were lingering issues. He was tall, but many basketball players are. For a time he could rely on funneling people over to a helpful Tyson Chandler, but these days there is no Tyson. There’s a Nerlens, but only for about four minutes a game.

As such, Dirk can now be left all alone. Like each of the rest of us, Dirk is all alone. He’s frightened, backing away from fate as quickly as his creaky feet will let him. Back, back he goes. Then there’s a pop, and Jaylen Brown shoots, and Dirk is dead only to rise to die again.

Sigh.