The Saturday Stein Line with Marc Stein (August 12, 2023) Part 3

Will Ben Rogers ever move past Dirk Nowitzki's once-frosty relationship with Dwyane Wade like Dirk says he has? Is Dirk the greatest athlete Dallas has ever seen? The guys tackle these topics and also share a compilation of congratulatory messages assembled by the Mavericks from Nowitzki's former teammates and Mavs luminaries.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This is Dirk Nwitsky and you're listeningto the Saturday Stein Line with my guys
Steiny on ninety seven one to freakeveryone. I want to welcome you back

(00:23):
to the Saturday Stein Line here fromSpringfield, Massachusetts. More Ben and Skin
joining me in a second, butI want to I want to play for
you guys some great audio that's assembledhere in honor of Dirk Nowitzki. Just
a slew of his former teammates chimingin on this Hall of Fame induction that
is now just hours away. Witha ninth pick in the nineteen ninety eight

(00:51):
NBA Draft, the Milwaukee Bucks selectDirk Nowitzki from Verzberg, Germany. The
resolutions Dirk or being inducted into thetwenty twenty three Hall of Fame. It's
definitely been a Hall of Fame ride. Bradley finds Navinski, who comes up
shooting and he's got his first bigbelieve the field, the well deserved honor.
Brother. I'm just proud of youto see where you've come from through

(01:15):
how you ended it. I'm proudof you. I'm proud of your family,
and I'm thankful to call your brother. Yes, incredible career well deserved.
Everything that you accomplish, your champion, and I'm honored just to call
your friend but also a teammate fortyone. Congrats with an unbelievable career and

(01:42):
rightfully a first ballot Hall of Family. Just incredible twenty one years with the
mass the best MAV of all time, championship, all the accolades, a
million, all star games, akey to the city, a street,
a wanna burger, a planet.I mean, where does it stop.
Congrats an incredible career and honor.I'm beat in the Hall of fair what's
up? Dirk's your friend and teammateDevin Harris here, really proud of you.

(02:06):
What you approached the game, whatyou revolutionize the game, your soul
deserved oldest honor. Can't wait tocelebrate you. Congrats again, Dirt.
You just want to say, comegrats. It's amazing. We all know
you deserve it. Playing to picka room with you, winning a championship
together and now watching you going intoa Hall of Famous. Special man.
So for graps, enjoy and seeuntil congratulations thirty Class of twenty twenty three.

(02:31):
Whoop, Hall of Fame. It'san honor to being your teammates,
your brother, your friend again bigbrothers. Congrats one of a kind.
Dirt, Congratulations on Hall of Fame. You're true one of the greats of
all time and it was great tosee the journey. Congratulations Dirt on the
Hall of Fame. Just want tosay thank you. The story of basketball

(02:53):
cannot be told without mission one.I appreciate that you. I love him
two thousand and eleven for life.It's not a dream. These class the
keen lognor and is the highest scoringcorn or player. Dirty, Dirty their
rainbow assess congratulations are going into thishuge class man with a honor privilege.

(03:15):
Must respect, must love respects alate clave. Dirty. Just want to
take congratulations. You know I'm makingthe hall. When want you to enjoy
the moment. It's an amazing accomplishmentand enjoy the moment both congratulations Drnovitski to

(03:35):
the Hall of Fame and represents yourwork, ethic, dedication, your love
to the game. And enjoy thismoment. Been a Hall of Famer in
our eyes for a long time.You change this city, the face of
basketball in the city. Nobody deservesmore than you. Sa my brother from
another journal mother, I just wantto say congratulations, your legacy, your
career second to nine, your hustle, your dedication to the game. I

(03:58):
wish you all success. You Godbless you, God bless your family and
all of love. Man, Dirtday, I just wanted to say congratulations.
I'm so proud of you. Youprove the entire world that hard work does
playoff and that do guys can anddo the English first and most importantly,
you prove that you could do iton and off the court, representing yourself,

(04:20):
your family, the maths, inthe entire city of Dallas in ways
like nobody else ever has congratulations.You truly are a whole thing. But
Dirt, I just want to saycongratulations from the Hall of Fame. You
deserve this and everything that happened toyou. You're a nightcling to everybody.
I just want to say congratulations,and we'll really deserve this. Dirk,

(04:44):
Congratulations on the induction. There's along list of things that you've done on
the basketball court. But when Ithink of you and I think of the
word change, I think of allthe lives that you've changed, the lives
in Dallas, the lives throughout Texasand the around the world. To your
generosity. It takes a special athleteto do the things that you've done on

(05:04):
the court, but it takes aHall of Fame human to be able to
use the platform that basketball has providedand to impact so many people along the
way. Thanks for all that youdo in the communities, and congrats again
on your induction into the Hall ofFame. Some moving words there at the

(05:28):
end from Brian Cardinal Bonus points toany of you who recognize all of those
voices, and I'm guessing plenty ofyou did. We heard from Michael Finley,
Jason Kidd, Steve Nash, Jason, Terry Caron Butler, Devin Harris,
Nico Harrison, Sean Mary and MaxiKleeba, Dwight Powell, Mark Cuban,
Luca don Chiz. We're all inthere. I hope I got everybody

(05:54):
back here on ninety seven one,the Freak Mark Stein joined by the Imitable
Freak franchise duo of Ben and Skin. I do have to check with you
guys, though there's been there's alot of Dwayne Wade here too. Dirk
has said over and over we're goodnow, we've bonded. We put all

(06:14):
the past in the past. Butbeing the journalistic stickler that I am,
I cannot. I cannot, Icould not ignore press conference Wade went last
after Dirk. Jacket and ring ceremony, Wade went last after Dirk. I'm
pretty sure tonight Wade speech will belast after Dirk. Are you guys?

(06:42):
Do you got? Is all forgottenfor the Birkener graduates with Dwayne Wade and
the Miami Heat. I can onlyspeak for my own personal emotions, and
I've heard Skin have so many deliciousrants about this, So I'll let him
speak for himself. But just becauseDirk is being a class act and taking
the high road does not mean thatwe all have to. Let's acknowledge Dirk
taking that high road and say,what a badass? Not surprised You're an

(07:04):
incredible human being. But I thatI'm not. I'm not dropping my I'm
maintaining full sports haight. I wishhim no ill will cross pass with Dwayne
Wade here, though, you willdap him up and they'll all be forgotten.
I promise you up. I swearto God I would not. I
might bring up the two thousand andsix finals, how he shot seven hundred

(07:26):
and forty seven thousand free throws Iam never gonna let it go if you
would not dap him up. Ifyou I would not dap him up.
Even if he reached out to mefirst, I would. I would not
dap him. I would not returndap. We will return to the text
machine next week. Unfortunately, I'mI'm, I'm I'm trying to be professional
here and run the studio like Iknow what I'm doing, So I'm not
I did a terrible job. Ididn't even throw out the text line today.

(07:48):
But we're gonna bring on the onthe steinline text line next week.
We're gonna do a poll to seeif anybody believes that Ben Rodgers would refuse
to dap up Hall of Fame orDwayne Wade if they cross pass here in
Springfield. What if Dwyane Wade walkedup to Ben right now, we're in
that sleeveless magician vest that he waswearing last night, and he wanted to

(08:09):
swap it with Ben for Ben's Rollertownthird anniversary shirt that he's wearing right now.
You know Ben would do a shirtbecause if you guys were watching the
show, if you were watching theevent last night, basically things were running
a little late, so that allthe participants were asked to remove their jackets
just to make the jacket unveiling alittle faster. If you noticed, Dwyane
Wade had a beautiful double breast ofjacket on. He did not remove it

(08:33):
because he clearly wanted to reveal theresplendent, sleeveless get up he had on
underneath. Man, I have triedto get over a lot of the Dwyane
Wade stuff, and hearing the wayDirt talk about it has helped me in
a lot of that regard. ButI think really the whole Dwyane Wade Dirk
thing, all it does is showus how ridiculously great Dirk is. Because

(08:58):
there's a lot of people that existin the kind of world that Dwayne Wade
exist in, and their egos areso large and so out of control,
that's kind of normal for them toact like prima donnas, and we just
don't get that from Dirk, andso we're sort of, I don't know,
it's just our expectations change. Benand I were able to squeeze in
a quick fifty minute trip to theBasketball Hall of Fame on the way up

(09:20):
here, and we turned the corner, and there's a picture of Lebron James
and Dwyane Wade doing the jersey swapat Staples the night after Miami played there
for the last time. And Idon't if you remember, but it was
like a forty five minute live thingwhere ESPN just stopped Sports Center and they
just showed it and it was thebiggest corny spectacle of all time. And
I'm looking at that it's hanging inthe Hall of Fame, and I'm thinking,

(09:43):
man, Dwyane Wade's got a DwayneWade. You know, it's just
that ego is so big. We'rejust so lucky to have Dirk. We're
just so lucky to have Dirk thatwe don't have to have our hero act
like a teenager in moments like this. All right, well, look this
is this is also a special weekendfor mister Wade going into the Hall of

(10:03):
Fame. So what We're gonna leavethat one there, But something tells me
we will revisit We will revisit thetopic very soon, because yes, there
I think there is there is.There is a fair bit of skepticism that
that that I mean, Dirk andWade say it's all forgotten in their pals.
I mean, you know, Ihad the interview with Dirk on last
week's show and I flat out askedhim, are you guys? Are you

(10:24):
guys buddies? Now? Do wehave to Is that the terminology we have
to use? But like I said, we're gonna leave it there on Wade.
We'll get into that again, butin our last few moments together before
we have to relinquish this studio.And again, thank you so much again
to Mix ninety three one in Springfieldfor letting us do this show live.
I really, really really wanted todo a live show from Springfield since we're

(10:46):
all here together. The aforementioned BillSimmons, we call him the Podfather because
of what he's done in this industry. He has a Dallas based media critic
named Brian Curtis, who Brian hasalways taken issue with my take that Dirk
is the goat of Dallas sports.The Cowboys are obviously an institution unrivaled the

(11:07):
Mavericks, the Stars, the Rangers. The Cowboys are on a different pedestal.
But my argument is I've lived heretwenty five years. I'm not a
native DFW guy like you guys,but to me, there is no singular
cowboy who can match what he's done. When I was young, even living
in the Buffalo area or southern California, Stawback and Landry were these massive mythical

(11:28):
figures. But that was a longtime ago. Am I am I?
Am I glossing over a particular cowboy? Or do I mean? Am I
sliding Nolan Ryan by saying I meanyou guys tell me, you guys are
the locals? You tell me?Am I? Am I on safe ground
with this take? All right?I think it's open for discussion. I
think it's a safe take to make. I mean, there's a debate to

(11:48):
be had, is it? Isit? Troy Aikman with three Super Bowls?
Is in Emmitt Smith the same threesuper Bowls and the old time leading
rusher in the history of the game, but dirt twenty one seasons with one
team him sixth all time leading scorer. I mean, he's he's incredibly special
beating a super team draft, youknow, all those fifty win seasons.
I think it's I think it's avalid debate topic. And I'm sorry not

(12:11):
to take a sie I would.I mean, let's look, Dudehyce,
you come jump on our show onMonday and let's bring this up again and
we'll recap this weekend. But Iwould see our running short on time because
you know, like I said,I don't want to slight those that Cowboys
team won three titles in four years. But my guess my point was,
could you narrow it down to anAcheman or a Smith or was it the

(12:31):
collective? That's you know, that'smy that's kind of my argument. Yeah,
And that's why I think it's avalid argument, because you're comparing Dirt
to an entire franchise in the Cowboys, Ben just named. You know,
a couple of players from our era, go to someone fifteen years older than
me and Ben, they're going totalk about Stabock and Tony Dorsett, and
then go even older than that andthey start talking about all these other greats

(12:52):
from another era. Dirk is theDallas Mavericks, and I don't think there's
a singular ranger. Nolan Ryan waslate in his career. Obviously, hockey's
not as big as Dallas I had. I think it's Dirk just by this
year fact that no other Maverick toucheshim. It's not even close guys,
this was amazing. I mean allI complain every week that it goes too

(13:13):
fast, but this was legitimately likeit felt like a four minute show.
But again it was really important tome that we get together because we're all
here because it is crazy and Isay it all the time. To have
gone to Wurtzburg in nineteen ninety eightand to see where this thing ended up
truly hard to believe. Lots moreDirk talk to come Monday when I joined

(13:35):
Benn and Skin, and next yearon ninety seven one the Freak