By Michael Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 31, 2007

It must feel like the cruelest form of torture for Dirk Nowitzki.

The league's most valuable player and his Dallas Mavericks begin their NBA regular season tonight in Cleveland. But back-to-back playoff flameouts have rendered this 82-game platform practically meaningless when it comes to changing his image as a postseason choker.

No matter how many games the Mavericks win -- and even if he repeats as league MVP -- his true proving ground won't arrive until April.

Does he want to fast forward to the playoffs?

"We'd love to do that," Nowitzki said with a laugh. "But we understand that this is a big process. You don't want to overlook the regular season. We have to get things right."

Nowitzki said people should expect "more of the same, just a little better" from him as he enters his 10th season in the NBA, following an offseason that saw him lead Germany into the FIBA World Olympic Qualifying Tournament and take an introspective trip to the Australian outback.

He grew a beard, slept a few nights in his car and tried his best not to think about how the 67-win Mavericks were upended in the first round by the Golden State Warriors and how he was upstaged by Baron Davis. "For me, I just wanted to get as far as I could from basketball a little bit and get refocused a bit and have some fun again," Nowitzki said. "It was an unbelievable trip. I watched one Finals game, but I didn't want to watch too much. I didn't want to know anything about the NBA."

Nowitzki and Mavericks are entering their second round of redemption, after spending all of last season attempting to prove that their free-fall against the Miami Heat in the 2006 NBA Finals -- when Dallas blew a 2-0 lead in the series and lost in six games -- was an anomaly.

"Obviously, last year was a huge disappointment," he said. "What I learned is, the regular season is important, but the season starts all over in the playoffs. You can have 82 wins and it doesn't matter. Once the playoffs start, you've got to be sharp. We finished so early last year, the last two or three weeks we were kind of cruising and once the playoffs started, we were not on top of our games anymore."

Worse yet, Nowitzki accepted the MVP award -- what should have been a shining achievement -- with many questioning his credentials. He felt slightly embarrassed about receiving the honor until he saw Mavericks owner Mark Cuban tearing up during the presentation. "That's something I will always cherish," Nowitzki said of the award. "It will be great once I retire and looking back on my career, [being] the first European [to win MVP], and when I first got in the league, it was so hard. But to me, this a team sport. I understand there are a lot of stars that never won the award but I have a couple more playoff runs in me and hopefully I can fulfill my dream [of a championship]."

But Nowitzki, 29, knows that he has to improve for Dallas to reach that pinnacle. "I feel in the playoffs, I didn't play my best as a leader," Nowitzki said. "I didn't pull through for us to get over the hump. That's why I was so disappointed."

When asked if the Mavericks wasted two great opportunities, Nowitzki shook his head. "We can't live in the past. Our window is not closed," Nowitzki said. "We still have some good players. We're not too old yet. We have all the intangibles we need to go all the way."