Larry Brown Sports

Mavericks guard Jason Terry didn’t make the All-Star team, but he wants to participate in the three-point contest. Teammate Dirk Nowitzki doesn’t seem to think he deserves a spot.

“He needs to start making a few,” Dirk said of Terry Friday, “especially on the road he hasn’t really shot the ball that well.”

Dirk’s right — Terry’s only shooting 37.6% on his three pointers this season. He’s a 38% three-point shooter for his career, which is alright, but nothing special. If he really wants a spot in the competition, he needs to be up with Ray Allen who’s second in the league at 51.5% for the season.

You might find it strange that Dirk would be so critical of a teammate, but it’s nothing new. Last year in the Finals, Dirk called out Jason Terry for his poor play the first two games of the series. The remarks worked and JET became one of Dallas’ best players the rest of the series. Maybe his words on Friday will inspire better shooting from Terry in the future.

Dirk Nowitzki has been one of the NBA’s best players for the last decade. As you know, his career reached its peak last season when the Mavericks won the NBA Finals and Dirk took home Finals MVP honors. However, Nowitzki has been battling a knee injury this year and has not been himself. Although he’s turned it on lately with 24 points against the Cavs and 30 against the Pacers, Dirk does not feel as though he has done enough to deserve an All-Star spot this season.

“Not really,” he said according the Dallas Morning News. “I mean, averaging whatever, 15, 16 points, I don’t think you should be an All-Star. But we’ll just have to wait and see. I think there’s a lot of great young talent in this league that deserves to go. I think LaMarcus Aldridge has been stiffed the last couple of years. He’s a great young player, fun to watch. You know Blake (Griffin); and (Kevin) Love is playing great, so there’s a lot of talent at my position. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”

Nowitzki was not named a Western Conference All-Star starter last week, but the coaches have yet to vote on reserves. He is right about his position being fairly stacked this season, so coaches would merely be showing a veteran some respect if they selected Dirk as a reserve. The man is honest if nothing else. Well, we know he’s plenty else.

Dirk Nowitzki’s Dallas Mavericks are tied for the Southwest Division lead at 12-8. Though the defending champs haven’t looked like the best team in the NBA through the first part of the season, Dirk still believes his team is the favorite to reach the NBA Finals.

“I haven’t seen one team in the West that I’m scared of,” Nowitzki reportedly said Friday. “I really haven’t. I think we can compete with all of them.

“Oklahoma City has probably the best record, but I think we’ve played them well every time we’ve seen them and everybody else has been up and down.”

The Mavs have split with the Thunder this season, losing the first matchup on a last-second three from Kevin Durant, and winning the rematch at home by 13. Dallas also beat Oklahoma City in the Eastern Conference finals last year.

Despite Dallas’ 0-3 start, and Dirk sitting out some games to rest his knee and get into better shape, he’s right — the road to the Finals goes through the Mavericks. The only problem is the Thunder may be good enough to beat them this year.

Chest bump I am a GM

One of the reasons winning back-to-back championships is so difficult is that the celebration never seems to end.  Every team wants a shot at the champ which puts a bulls eye on your back, but it is tough to come back to reality after experiencing such a high.  If you want proof, just ask the Boston Bruins.  It feels like they stopped celebrating their Stanley Cup victory last weekend, which is almost certainly why they started so slow this season before turning on the jets.  Now that they have received their championship rings, Dirk Nowitzki is looking forward to getting back to business with the Mavericks.

“It kind of dragged out,” Nowitzki said according to the Dallas Morning News. “We had the banner raised, then the White House and now the rings. It’s kind of like we all wanted to get this over with and move on and start obviously the new season. But it’s definitely a great thing getting the rings. They’re beautiful. But, I’m kind of glad it’s behind us now.”

Championships don’t last two years.  Winning two in a row is a tall task, but the only way to do it is to get past the first one and remain hungry.  Dirk and company have been average thus far this season.  Perhaps no longer having to worry about what kind of ring they’re getting and being done with guest appearances will help them regain their focus.

The Dallas Mavericks held their championship ring ceremony on Wednesday night before they took on the Timberwolves.  The reigning NBA Finals MVP, Dirk Nowitzki, is sitting out while he nurses a knee injury, but as you can see from the video above he contributed plenty to the evening.  Dirk sat at the Fox Sports Southwest commentator’s desk during some of the first half.  When Jason Terry threw an alley-oop to Brandan Wright to give the Mavs a 37-31 lead, Dirk did what any good commentator would do.

“Oh my God! Ohhhhh! Shut it dowwwwwn! Lets go hoooome!” was the call television viewers were treated to.

And just like that, Dirk Nowitzki became even more of a star.

Come on, Dirk.  You know better than that.  When you are one of the world’s most famous and beloved athletes, you can’t be eating meat on television.  Only barbarians do that.  The commercial you see above that features reigning NBA Finals MVP Dirk Nowitzki recently caused an outrage among the vegetarian community.

According to a translation of a German newspaper article, the advertisement is for Ing-DiBa Bank.  The elderly woman behind the counter asks Nowitzki, “What did we always used to say?”  Nowitzki then responds, “So you grow big and strong” before downing the slice of wurst sausage.  The horror!

Vegetarians took to the bank’s Facebook page to express their outrage about Dirk eating ground up dead animals on TV. Perhaps they should have gone with cheese. Athletes and icons eating meat in public should be outlawed, right?

NBA Finals MVP Dirk Nowitzki threw out the first pitch before a Ranges game in June, shortly after he led the Mavericks to the NBA championship. The Rangers won that game 8-1. Dirk’s toss wasn’t the best (watch video of it here), but the Rangers and their fans enjoyed having their local hero throw out a first pitch.

Texas liked Dirk so much that they apparently had him on a list of people they wanted to throw out the first pitch prior to one of their World Series games. MLB reportedly nixed the idea.

Sources told ESPNDallas.com that — with the NBA in the midst of a lockout that has spanned 111 days — at least some hesitation stems from the idea that MLB executives want to stand behind their basketball counterparts and have notified the Rangers that they can’t bestow first-pitch honors on an NBA player.

Major League Baseball insists that the NBA’s labor unrest had no impact on Nowitzki not being selected to throw out the first pitch.

“MLB absolutely denies that any part in selecting the first ball pitcher had anything to do with the current labor situation in the NBA,” MLB spokesman Pat Courtney said. “You want the club’s input in what makes sense for them and then we talk about what makes sense for the team and a good broad-base national appeal.

Hmm, so MLB says they want a person who makes sense for the team and has a good national appeal? Dirk is an extremely well known sports figure in North America. He’s a local star in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. What about the combination does not make sense? Why would MLB not allow him to throw out the first pitch? So far, they don’t have any good explanations. I’m not sure one exists.

Thanks to I am a GM for the heads up.