A basketball star with a defended heart
Dirk Nowitzki was suckered, says Allison Glock in ESPN the Magazine. The star forward for the Dallas Mavericks was consciously seeking a wife and a family last year when his phone rang and a woman named Cristal Taylor struck up a conversation. They met, began seeing each other, and soon he proposed. Friends suspected she was after his money, but Nowitzki wouldn’t hear of it, until an old mentor from his native Germany did a background check. Taylor was unmasked as a career felon with multiple aliases and a trail of check forgery and credit card fraud. For a while, Nowitzki was so shaken he refused to discuss her arrest with anyone. “If I don’t talk about it, I don’t have to think about it,” he says. “I’m one of those. I always come across that everything is fine. And”—he stops for a moment to chew his lower lip—“sometimes it might not be.” He wound up telling his family back in Germany everything—“I had to spill my whole heart out’’—but has become a cipher again. “I still don’t share my inner feelings. And I am okay with that. With not being seen. Most of the time, I’m really happy. I’m not lonely. Am I?”
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Trump eases Mexico, Canada tariffs again as markets slide
speed read The president suspended some of the 25% tariffs he imposed on Mexican and Canadian imports
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Trump tells Cabinet they are in charge of layoffs, not Musk
Speed Read The White House has faced mounting complaints about DOGE's sweeping cuts
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Meghan Markle's new Netflix show and the media backlash
Talking Point With Love, Megan offers fresh insights into her 'mind-bogglingly exclusive lifestyle' in California
By The Week UK Published