Editor's note: This story originally appeared in the Feb. 15, 2016, issue of Sports Illustrated. To subscribe, click here.
On the afternoon of Sunday, Nov. 29, Dirk Nowitzki was in Dallas, waiting to board the Mavericks’ team plane for Sacramento, when he heard the report: Kobe Bryant was retiring at the end of the season.
The news saddened Nowitzki. In part because he has long admired Bryant, often hurrying home from his own games to catch the fourth quarter of the Lakers’ West Coast feed. But also because he and Bryant are the same age, 37, and to see a peer betrayed by his body is to grapple with his own athletic mortality.