Dirk on Playing at 40: A Year ‘Beyond Stats’ The Mavericks are preparing a massive party for their final home game of the season — in case it proves to be Dirk Nowitzki’s farewell. L.M. Otero/Associated Press Marc Stein The rest-of-the-season marketing campaign introduced by the Dallas Mavericks last month was exclusively numbers-based: 41.21.1. Those digits are meant to commemorate Dirk Nowitzki’s N.B.A.-record 21 seasons with only one franchise while wearing his familiar No. 41 jersey. Although the likely future Hall of Famer has yet to make a definitive announcement about whether he intends to retire, or play on for a 22nd consecutive season, Mavericks officials are preparing a massive party for their final home game of the season next Tuesday against Phoenix — just in case it proves to be his farewell. “It’s going to be a special night whether he likes it or wants it or not,” the Dallas owner Mark Cuban said. This newsletter has taken the same approach this season. In September, knowing Nowitzki might opt to call it a career, we scheduled a few Q. and A. sitdowns with him so he could periodically discuss playing at age 40. This is the third of those visits. STEIN: How much better are you feeling physically over the past month compared with where you were the last couple of times we chatted? NOWITZKI: It’s been a lot better. It was so hard to try to fight back in the middle of the season — for seven weeks I pretty much did nothing. I couldn’t really enjoy myself for most of December and January. If I don’t get that inflamed tendon in my foot, maybe I’m actually having a decent year. I worked hard to get back to a decent level where I could play and compete with the guys. The last few weeks, I’m moving better, I’m feeling better, I’m playing more minutes, so I’ve been able to enjoy my time again on the court. Have you reached the point where you feel that the surgery you had on your left foot last April was the right call? It had to be done. My foot really wasn’t moving much already last season. Honestly, how I feel now is how I should have felt a long time ago, but then the tendon got inflamed and I had to deal with it. It kind of messed up the season for me in some ways — it threw me back so far. To start from zero in the middle of the season, as a 40-year-old, was tough luck. But honestly I can’t sit here and complain. I’ve had unbelievable good fortune in my career, not getting hurt too much, not missing a lot of time in 21 years. I’ve only had a few surgeries. So I don’t want to sit here and whine about it. Your statistics for the season are going to look out of place compared with the level you’ve been at for the bulk of your career. Do you look at the numbers? No. This year is kind of beyond stats. December and January were just so bad — I didn’t have my legs or my wind so obviously it was hard to get a shooting rhythm going. Coming off the bench was new, too. But like I said, I’m glad I turned the corner a little bit the last few weeks and I’m having fun competing with my teammates again. For all the things that went wrong on the health front, your All-Star Weekend experience was storybook. How do you reflect on going to Charlotte and shooting 3 for 3 on 3-pointers in your last All-Star Game and the whole idea of playing in that game as a commissioner’s special pick along with your old rival Dwyane Wade? I really enjoyed myself. Amazing weekend, and I’m really thankful to the league and the Commish for making that happen and having me and Dwyane in it. I said before that the All-Star Game is for the players who really deserve to be there and carry their teams and their franchises, so I went there with the mind-set that I really don’t want to play that much. I didn’t want to take minutes away from somebody deserving; I just thought that if I go there and make one 3 that’ll be awesome. But obviously Bud (Bucks Coach Mike Budenholzer) subbed me in and the first look was kind of deep, and I shot it and it went in. The second one was even deeper and I thought: “Whynot? This will be your last time on this stage.” So I shot it and that one went in, too. It was definitely a moment I’ll never forget for the rest of my life. We didn’t see you in the second half, though. Was that your call? Bud asked me at halftime if I want to go back in, but he was like, “That was pretty much perfect, wasn’t it?” I said, “Yeah, it can only go downhill from here.” So we decided not to put me back in, which was fine by me. How much did passing Wilt Chamberlain and getting to sixth on the N.B.A. career scoring list weigh on your mind throughout the season? Everybody was aware that it was only 200-something points coming into the season, so I figured that shouldn’t be a problem. But then with the foot and the way I started off in December and January, I didn’t know at times if it was going to happen and whether my foot would get back to decent. But you know me. This season was really more about hopefully having a good season with the team. We were chasing the playoffs at the start of the year — that was more important. It’s always the team success and hopefully making it back to the playoffs over individual stats. Then obviously we trade four of our starters away for the chance to get Kristaps Porzingis. Then I got more playing time, I started feeling better and playing better, so I figured it was going to happen eventually. I think you know by now that when I pull you aside for one of these visits that I’m going to ask about Luka Doncic. All of us media types thought coming into the season that you were going to take him under your wing and mentor your fellow European. That didn’t really happen, but you guys did become quite the comedy duo off the floor. What kind of relationship have you built with the likely rookie of the year? He’s just such a confident young man that there’s not much you can really tell him. He’s got the experience, he’s got the confidence in crunchtime already — all that I had to work for. He’s got the ability to forget anything that just happened five seconds ago, 10 seconds ago, and make another big play. That usually develops a lot later than 19 or 20. But off the floor, man, he is a kid. He’s never serious off the floor and obviously I’m not, either. He loves to have fun. We joke about everything and anything at all times. He’s just a funny dude. We enjoy our time together — I guess he took me under his wing.