Yet Nowitzki stuck with the Mavericks through all the highs and lows, until his retirement in 2019. And he has a hard time relating to the NBA’s new wave of disgruntled superstars forcing trades at every turn. “It’s definitely new,” Nowitzki said on SI’s Crossover podcast. “We always felt like we the players didn’t have enough power at the beginning of my career (in 1998), and the owners had all the power, could make all the moves. And now it’s almost shifting like a little bit too much. I think there should be like a happy medium. But now the players forcing themselves out, to me is not the way to go, either.”