Even at the advanced basketball age of 36, Dirk Nowitzki continues to work tirelessly at improving his game.
Nowitzki and his longtime trainer Holger Geschwindner spent the summer searching for ways to get Dirk’s already impossible-to-block jumper off even quicker. Per ESPN:
“I don’t think, to the naked eye, you would see it,” Nowitzki said. “I don’t know if the [average] fan will see the difference. But I’m always trying to get better, and this is just a little tool for me to shoot a little quicker. We’ll see how it works during the season.”
“We worked on a quicker release,” Geschwindner said, citing Golden State’s Steph Curry as the standard-setter for getting shots off rapid-fire and insisting that Nowitzki also can become adept at getting the ball to the release point faster “if he sticks with it.”
Said Nowitzki: “Even now, I’m 36, but I don’t see myself as a complete basketball player. It’s always about getting better and adding stuff in the summer. That’s something I wanted to look at and see how it goes, so I’ll try it. […] What else can I do at 36 when the feet slow down a little bit? Try to be even quicker with the shot, because once you get older, you don’t jump as high and the first step is slower. Shooting quicker should help my game for the back end of my career. And if it doesn’t work [out well], I’ll just go back to the old way.”
