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This Day In Sports…March 7, 2017:
Dirk Nowitzki of the Dallas Mavericks becomes only the third player in NBA history to score 30,000 career points with one team in a 122-111 win over the Los Angeles Lakers. Nowitzki needed 20 points to hit the milestone and scored 18 of them in the first quarter. Then he drained a three-pointer just over a minute into the second quarter to get it done. Nowitzki, the seven-foot German playing in his 19th season, also became the first international player to reach the 30,000 plateau, much less do it with one team.
Nowitzki joined the NBA in 1998 at the age of 20 after a successful early career in Germany. He was drafted ninth overall by the Milwaukee Bucks but was immediately traded to Dallas. Nowitzki promptly became the best player in Mavericks history. He ended up playing 21 seasons and scoring 31,650 points, currently sixth all-time in the NBA. Nowitzki led the Mavs to 15 playoff appearances and the franchise’s only NBA championship in 2011, the year he was named the league’s MVP.
The only other players to score 30,000 with one organization are Karl Malone with the Utah Jazz and Kobe Bryant with the Lakers. NBA career scoring leader LeBron James is over the 40,000-point mark now, but his total is divided between the Cleveland Cavaliers, Miami Heat and the Lakers. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, No. 2 all-time, split his points between the Milwaukee Bucks and the Lakers.
What about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls? Well, the last 3,015 of MJ’s 32,292 points came with the Washington Wizards. Stephen Curry? In his 14th season with the Golden State Warriors, Curry sits at 23,258 points. The next entrant into the 30,000 club will be Kevin Durant of the Phoenix Suns. Durant, who has 28,427 points, began his career in the Seattle Supersonics’ final season and has also played with the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Warriors and the Brooklyn Nets.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
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