Dirk Nowitzki claims he has yet to decide whether he will retire from basketball at the end of the upcoming NBA season.
The German is widely-regarded as the greatest European player to have featured in the NBA and is gearing up for his 21st season with the Dallas Mavericks.
During that time he has played 1,471 regular-season contests and 145 play-off games and has shown no signs of slowing down – after finishing last term with an average of 12.0 points and 5.7 rebounds in 24.7 minutes over 77 games.
Ankle surgery in the off-season means Nowitzki could take time to hit the ground running in the new season and at 40, retirement has again been mentioned.
The power forward insists he will let his on-court play decide, with his focus on enjoying playing and not setting himself any deadlines.
“I’m going to make that decision (about retirement), I guess, once obviously I see how the season goes,” he is quoted as saying on Mavs.com. “I almost played the entire season last year, was healthy and obviously could have played almost every game.
“I decided to have surgery early, but if next year is going to go sort of the same, then hey, maybe, and we’ll leave the door open and I’m going to play another (season).”
Nowitzki did go on to add: “I want to approach this as if there is no tomorrow and then just hopefully have a great year. I’m going to try to be efficient again, as I’ve often tried my entire career. We’ll just go from there, but hopefully it’s going to be a lot more fun than last year.
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