DALLAS -- It wouldn’t be nearly as drastic as the pay cut he voluntarily took this summer, but the Dallas Mavericks want to trim Dirk Nowitzki's minutes.
The 36-year-old Nowitzki averaged 32.9 minutes per game last season, when he earned his 12th All-Star invitation. By comparison, San Antonio Spurs power forward Tim Duncan, another legend who has aged gracefully, hasn’t averaged that many minutes since 2008-09. Duncan has averaged fewer than 30 minutes in three of the last four seasons, keeping him fresh for Finals runs the last two years.
“I think we can find a way to get him from 32 minutes maybe down to 31 or 30 or maybe 29, who knows?” Mavs coach Rick Carlisle said of Nowitzki. “A lot of it is the spacing and how you play him and how you rest him. He played some bigger minutes late in the year in some critical games. But the important thing was when we got to that point, he was fresh enough to where he could absorb it and do it.
“And we're looking big picture again with him.”
Of course, the problem with trimming Nowitzki’s minutes is that the Mavs are a much better team with him on the floor. They outscored opponents by 323 points with Nowitzki in the lineup last season and were outscored by 126 with him on the bench.
The Mavs won’t have a true backup power forward again, unless camp invite Charlie Villanueva earns a roster spot over a player with a guaranteed salary. At this point, the plan is for Chandler Parsons and Al-Farouq Aminu to play power forward when Nowitzki rests.
Cutting a few minutes per game might not sound like much, but it adds up to several games’ worth by the end of the season. That’s especially important for a player with 16 NBA seasons worth of wear and tear on his knees, plus the minutes he spent playing with the German national team for most of those summers.
The Mavs first started making managing Nowitzki’s minutes a priority in 2010-11, when he averaged 34.3, a drop of more than three minutes per night from the previous season. His minutes dropped to as low as 31.3 per game in 2012-13, but that figure is skewed by the fact that he came off the bench for six games after missing the first 27 following arthroscopic knee surgery.
Nowitzki’s knees felt good going into training camp. He recognizes the value of rest for his aging body, but he certainly isn’t asking for less playing time.
“I did a lot of work this summer,” Nowitzki said. “I feel ready to play with whatever comes. And I’ll use these four weeks to get in even better condition and I guess I’m ready. In the playoffs, I averaged close to 35 or 40, so whatever comes, comes. I’ll be ready for it.”