How Did the Mavericks Screw Up the Dirk Nowitzki Statue So Badly?

Building statues of former athletes can be tricky. Only the all-time greats are honored with a statue, no matter what the sport, but not every athlete has a signature stance or pose that makes building a statue easy. Michael Jordan, for example, has the Jumpman logo that is inseparable from his entire legacy as a player and thus the Chicago Bulls had an immediate and easy vision for his statue. Shaq, on the other hand, didn't really have a particular signature move and so the Lakers had to get creative with his likeness in statue form.

Dirk Nowitzki is a similar case to Jordan. He is an all-time great and the best player in Dallas Mavericks history. He also has a signature pose-- the one-legged fadeaway, synonymous with who he was during his career. Yet, the Mavericks somehow still screwed it up!

Last night was Nowitzki's retirement ceremony. The Mavs unveiled his jersey in the rafters, Nowitzki gave a nice speech, and everyone enjoyed it. But when it came time to reveal what his statue outside of American Airlines Center, I assume there were gasps of horror throughout the DFW region

Why? Why did they add multiple basketballs? Whose idea was that? For what purpose are they there? The only thing I can think of is to add the element of Nowitzki's rainbow arc to the statue, but it is impossible to memorialize that using a statue.

Nowitzki's statue is arguably the easiest of any modern player to build. What's LeBron's statue gonna look like outside of Quicken Loans Arena? Very few guys have a move like Nowitzki's, yet the Mavs got too cute with it.

Fortunately it is not yet built, so there's time to fix it. Let's hope they do.