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Olympic Honor for a Basketball Star

Critics Say Nowitzki too Inexperienced to Carry German Flag

He's a well-paid professional in the National Basketball Association, but Dirk Nowitzki will carry the German flag at the Olympics opening cermony. For German fans he's a local boy made good, but some Olympic athletes think he's too professional -- and too inexperienced -- for the honor.

Basketball star Dirk Nowitzki, a forward for the Dallas Mavericks and one of the most recognizable faces in the American NBA, will carry the German flag at the Olympic opening ceremonies in Beijing on Friday, the German Olympic Committee announced Wednesday.

The decision has sparked a controversy in German sports circles because Nowitzki, 30, has never won an Olympic medal. As a basketball pro and one of the highest-earning players in the NBA, he also doesn't quite embody the Olympics' "amateur" athletic ideal.

"We're a little disappointed that a long tradition of choosing successful Olympic athletes for this honor has been broken," said Heiner Gabelmann, director of the German shooting team, according to the mass-circulation BILD newspaper.

One reason he hasn't won an Olympic medal is that the German basketball team last competed in the Olympics in 1992, when Nowitzki was 14. He did play a key role in clinching Germany's place at this year's Olympics by scoring 32 points in a victory over Puerto Rico's team in July.

"It has for years been a dream for Dirk Nowitzki to be at the Olympics,'' Michael Vesper, General Director of the German Olympic Committee, said in a statement on Wednesday. "This dream is now a reality."

The committee first offered the flag-bearing honor to gymnast Fabian Hambuchen, the world high-bar champion, but he declined because his first competition is scheduled just one day after the opening ceremony.

Nowitzki has led the German national team to medals in other international tournaments, including a bronze medal at the Basketball World Cup in 2002 and a silver medal win at the European Championship in 2005. He's also the first European ever to be selected as the NBA's most valuable player.

Nowitzki is popular in Germany, and a recent online poll had him ahead of other athletes as the choice for flag-bearer. But these decisions are up to the Olympic Committee and not the public at large.

"We have chosen him, because he more than any other embodies the Olympic idea," the German Olympic Committee's Vesper said.

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