Dirk Nowitzki announces retirement from German national team

Germany is not going to play in the 2016 Olympics basketball tournament — they didn’t qualify out of EuroBasket for the games, or even this summer’s pre-Olympics last-chance qualifying tournaments (Germany had hoped to host one of those tournaments, but no such luck).

With that, Dirk Nowitzki has announced he is walking away from the German national team and international basketball.

He made the announcement to Bild of Germany, our translation comes via Agence France-Presse.

“The last match at Euro 2015 was my last match for Germany,” the 37-year-old Nowitzki told Bild newspaper....

Nowitzki, a power forward who won an NBA title with the Mavericks in 2011, played 153 times for his country, making his debut in February 1997 and he amassed a points total of 3,045. He played in the German teams that took third place in the 2002 World Championships in the United States and second place in the 2005 European Championships in Serbia.

At age 37 you can’t blame Nowitzki. He’s had a bounceback NBA season, scoring 17.7 points per game and leading the Mavericks to the five seed in the West currently.

What active NBA player will carry the German team flag now? Dennis Schroder of the Hawks is the best player, but Tibor Pleiss of the Jazz also could help.