No Nowitzki for Germany

NBA Obsessed takes you into the hit and run game of NBA Basketball.

So is Mark Cuban upset with Dirk Nowitzki or not? Is that why Dirk is not representing the German national team in Poland?

No. Mark simply asked Dirk to take time off if his team qualified for the Olympics and they did that. Dirk Nowitzki claims that he could have played and Mark would not have stopped him, but that was not all there was to it.

“Dirk and I agreed last year after his Olympic run, which was his dream for Germany, that he would take a year off,” Cuban said. “He has the option of returning after this year if that is what he wants to do. Hopefully, instead, the NBA will return the favor to FIBA in the use of our players that FIBA gave to us in summer league.”

In announcing to the German media that Nowitzki would not be playing in Poland, federation president Ingo Weiss told reporters that “we accept this decision completely,” describing his organization’s relationship with the Mavericks as “excellent and reliable.”

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It sounds like everybody is happy, but that is not the case. The NBA allows players to compete for their respective national teams if they can get that team to pay for the insurance. The problem Mark Cuban had was not with Dirk playing, but with a little known rule that allows the National teams from preventing NBA players from playing in the NBA summer leagues without the permission of the player’s National team and that happened to the Dallas Mavericks, but not to Dirk, it was another player.

Mark Cuban is not always solidly behind his players when it comes to international play

Mark Cuban is still not happy period.

Yet in spite of his longtime backing of Nowitzki’s national-team excursions, Cuban remains a very reluctant supporter of international tournaments in general, having railed for years against the risks absorbed by NBA teams when star players such as Nowitzki return to FIBA play, where more physical contact is frequently allowed by referees.

You have to figure that stuff can happen and already did in the case of Tony Parker getting hurt playing for his National team. Cuban has millions of dollars riding on Nowitzki, not to mention any hint of going to the finals. Maybe Cuban is right?

Image: Zuma Press

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