Nowitzki’s Chase for Title Gets the Boot Back Home

You would think a town whose roots go back 14 centuries would appreciate history -- especially when the person with a chance to make it is one of its own.

If the Dallas Mavericks beat the Miami Heat two more times to win the NBA Finals, Dirk Nowitzki will become the first European to be the top player on a championship team, a potential turning point in the globalization of the game. That’s big news to NBA Commissioner David Stern.

Here, basketball is on the last page of the sports section.

There’s this little soccer tournament known as the World Cup going on, and the country’s home team has won its first two games -- including an emotional victory over rival Poland.

After a week’s worth of channel surfing in Germany, the only mention I saw of Nowitzki came on the ticker of a CNBC-like station, which announced that “Dirk Nowitzki und die Dallas Mavericks” had lost Game 3 to the Miami Heat. Newspapers have entire sections devoted to World Cup coverage but have only a few paragraphs on the NBA Finals. Germany has football fever, and not even Nowitzki’s hometown is immune.

Wurzburg (population 133,000) in southwest Germany has the hallmarks of a European city: a river, a well-fortified castle, great old buildings, a central marketplace, small walking streets and statues of lions.

Soccer is everywhere in this town. The cooking supply store has soccer-themed placemats, cups and saucers and cake pans. The hat store has soccer-ball caps. The handbag store has a soccer-ball purse. A lottery shop has pictures of German national team players for sale. I asked the saleswoman if I could buy a Dirk Nowitzki picture.

“Only football,” she said.

A place called Claudia’s Erotik, specializing in adult accessories, is having a 10% off World Cup sale. Since the Mavericks sell women’s underwear that says “I [Heart] Dirk” at the team store in American Airlines Center, I figured the ladies in his hometown ought to be entitled to Nowitzki items of their own. I asked the man behind the counter if he had any Nowitzki-themed merchandise.

“The basketball -- spieler?” he asked, pantomiming a free throw.

Yes, I replied. He shook his head.

On a small street I came across a bar called Mainback, which called itself a “Premiere Sportsbar.”

The bartender, Roland Gaitzsch, said he was a friend of Nowitzki’s, although there was no evidence here. Gaitzsch said he had a jersey autographed by Nowitzki and the Mavericks at home.

Of Nowitzki, he said, “We’re very proud.”

He also conceded, “Right now, the town’s not really into it. The big team is soccer.”

One big impediment to Dirkmania is the time difference. The NBA Finals games usually begin at 3 a.m. here and finish about 6 a.m.

There’s only one restaurant showing all of the playoff games live, and that place had to get a special permit to be open at those hours.

Bar patron Gorge Arneth said he heard fans partying in the streets until 6 a.m. after Germany beat Poland. Which raises the question, if they can stay up till sunrise to party for the soccer team, why can’t they stay up to watch the basketball game?

I came across an Internet cafe. Maybe the hard-core basketball fans, unable to watch the games, were coming here to satisfy their Nowitzki needs online.

Not so, said Ibrahim Al-Ani, a store employee. He heard people mention Nowitzki’s name around town, but generally folks weren’t flocking to computers to read about him. Al-Ani knew Nowitzki did a national ad for a financial services company (ING). Al-Ani was friendly, but he couldn’t give me the answers I was looking for.

“Maybe if you ask younger people,” he said.

I would have asked those two kids across the street, but they were locked in a serious soccer game on their Sony PSPs.

Down the street was Nowitzki’s old school, Rontgen, and the gym where he worked on his shot as a skinny teenager. The school was closed, but student Jonathan Klement was at the bus stop outside.

He knew about Nowitzki and had seen the signs commemorating the school’s basketball victories when Nowitzki played. He wasn’t staying up late to watch the games, but he did catch a couple when he visited the United States last week.

When asked if the NBA Finals were a big deal, Clement said, “I don’t think so, because of the FIFA World Cup. Not many people know about this.”

When I asked him if he wanted to see Nowitzki win the championship, he shrugged. When I asked if he wanted to see Germany win the World Cup, his face lighted up and he said, “Yes!”

When I gave other people a choice between a championship for Nowitzki or a World Cup for Germany, they all chose the soccer team. One man didn’t even wait for me to finish the question before he said, “Football!”

I did see a trolley bearing two white flags with blue script that started with a capital M. Mavericks, perhaps? Nope. “Mozart fest.”

Time to face the music: the quest for basketball faithful in the heart of soccer country came up short.

J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read more by Adande, go to latimes.com/Adandeblog.