Finley認為努力和天賦成就了今天的Nowitzki

從前，昔日小牛的三劍俠只有Dirk Nowitzki還在奮鬥，Steve Nash早前退休，而Michael Finley則回到了小牛工作。日前，Finley在接受電台訪問時，談及了在隊中的新角色，以及對兩位拍檔的看法。
被問到兩位拍檔來投時候的轉變，他只出在Nash和Nowitzki來投前，整支球隊的氣氛也不太好。但當兩位來投後，大家一起努力成為了球隊的核心成員，在每場比賽中盡力以赴。及後球隊也加入了一些球員，令小牛成為季後賽的常客。在那個時候，Finley認為球隊有能力爭取總冠軍。

引用It was tough times when I got here – before Steve and Dirk – the atmosphere around the team wasn’t a good one. But once we got the addition of Steve and Dirk, we had a hardworking core of guys, guys who would go out and play hard each and every night…over the years, we started putting a couple other key ingredients around us, and we became a playoff contender, and I think we had, at one point, a championship caliber team.

而什麼原因令Nowitzki成為一個如此特別的球員。Finley認為，對方是一個很努力的球員，經常留在場館訓練，再加上Nowitzki自身擁有的天賦，成就了他。而且Finley認為Nowitzki經常希望把自己變得更好，所以這絕對是他努力的成果。

引用He’s a hard worker and he’s a gym rat. He has those two things going for him, and on top of that, he has talent. When you mix those three things together, usually good things come out of it. Dirk is always working on his game, even late in his 30s…just always trying to get better as an individual. What you see on the court is just the end result of hours and years of hard work.

談及現時的工作，他在小牛已經兩年了，工作的性質就是班主Mark Cuban的助手。而他也盡力向Mark Cuban和Donny Nelson努力學習。Finley認為，自己的角色就是球員和管理層之間的橋樑，令球隊成為一支更好的球隊，甚至是聯盟最佳的球隊之一。

引用I’ve been working with the team for, I think, two years now. And, I’m pretty much ‘Mark’s assistant’ – Cuban, that is. He’s not big on titles. So, he said if I wanted a title, if anybody happens to ask, just tell them you’re ‘Mark’s assistant.’ So, I accepted that title with open arms. But, my duty really is just trying to learn as much as I can from both Mark and Donny Nelson. And I’m kind of like the liaison between the players, management, and ownership. Try to give Mark a player’s perspective of what’s going on…just trying to make the team a better ‘team’, and make the organization be one of the best in the NBA.

(圖片及資料來源：dallasnews.com)