It wasn't supposed to be this way, but it is: Dirk Nowitzki is, and may be for the foreseeable future, the best basketball player in town. It's not always pretty. He's lumbering, he's falling away, he's in desperate need of a haircut. But it works — especially the falling away and the jump shot it enables — and it will work even better if his bosses' off-season moves prove more successful than they look on paper.