James Can Learn From Nowitzki’s Lessons

 Dirk Nowitzki had just turned 28 — or one and a half years older than LeBron James is now — when the Dallas Mavericks lost the 2006 N.B.A. finals to Dwyane Wade and a Miami team they couldn’t put away after leading by 2 games and 13 points with six minutes left in the fourth quarter of Game 3.

And so it was that the Mavericks wound up losing four straight, three games by a total of 6 points, with Nowitzki missing a game-tying free throw with 3.4 seconds in one, punting the ball into the stands after another and later being called out by Wade as a poor leader and finisher and something of a whiner.

Forget for the moment that Wade would not have bared such feelings about another team’s star if that player had not been viewed as somehow less authentic, a European wannabe. The criticism wasn’t without merit. It took five long years for Nowitzki to return to the stage of his failures, to prove that he had heard the criticism and taken it to heart.

In leading the Mavericks to their first title in Miami on Sunday night, claiming the finals’ most valuable player trophy after the 105-95 closeout in Game 6, Nowitzki was a more versatile player, a more confident closer and a much better leader.