Dallas Mavericks

While the 27 year old Ellis is nowhere near the PG Paul is, he is one heck of an offensive talent. No doubt a Dirk/Howard/Ellis trio puts Dallas back in contention for top team in the West.....and with the ability to add more the following season when Dirk takes a paycut gives it the potential for something great. This to me has much more traction than a Howard/Paul combo...as Paul is not going to leave the Clippers. It also gives Howard more incentive to pick Dallas if his buddy Ellis is coming as well. They could choose between us and Atlanta.....Howard has sounded reluctant to go play in his home town. Ellis has made it clear that he is not staying in Milwaukee. I still would not put it as likely....I would put the odds at 25% right now but on the rise. Nothing is a sure thing when Howard is involved. He can change his mind in an instant. Even without Howard, I can see Dallas going hard after Ellis as one of their pieces of the offseason. Monta Ellis has informed the Milwaukee Bucks that he will opt out of the last year of his deal, according to league sources. Ellis, who had one year, $11 million left on his contract, will become one of the most coveted free agents on the market this summer.Sources say the Atlanta Hawks, Dallas Mavericksand the Los Angeles Lakers have interest in Ellis, although the Lakers could get Ellis only via an unlikely sign-and-trade deal. Ellis, who originally signed a six-year, $66 million deal with the Golden State Warriors, is close with Lakers free agent Dwight Howard. The two have long desired to play together. If Howard cannot achieve his top goal of playing with Chris Paul, teaming up with Ellis may become an option he would strongly consider. Ellis' goal in signing his original deal was to give him the flexibility to become a free agent in his prime. The Bucks reportedly had offered Ellis a two-year, $24 million extension earlier this month, but the offer was contingent on him not opting out of the final season of his contract. Ellis led the Bucks with 19.2 points per game in the regular season, his eighth in the NBA after being drafted by the Warriors 40th overall in 2005. While the 27 year old Ellis is nowhere near the PG Paul is, he is one heck of an offensive talent. No doubt a Dirk/Howard/Ellis trio puts Dallas back in contention for top team in the West.....and with the ability to add more the following season when Dirk takes a paycut gives it the potential for something great. This to me has much more traction than a Howard/Paul combo...as Paul is not going to leave the Clippers. It also gives Howard more incentive to pick Dallas if his buddy Ellis is coming as well. They could choose between us and Atlanta.....Howard has sounded reluctant to go play in his home town. Ellis has made it clear that he is not staying in Milwaukee. I still would not put it as likely....I would put the odds at 25% right now but on the rise. Nothing is a sure thing when Howard is involved. He can change his mind in an instant. Even without Howard, I can see Dallas going hard after Ellis as one of their pieces of the offseason. Monta Ellis has informed the Milwaukee Bucks that he will opt out of the last year of his deal, according to league sources. Ellis, who had one year, $11 million left on his contract, will become one of the most coveted free agents on the market this summer.Sources say the Atlanta Hawks, Dallas Mavericksand the Los Angeles Lakers have interest in Ellis, although the Lakers could get Ellis only via an unlikely sign-and-trade deal. Ellis, who originally signed a six-year, $66 million deal with the Golden State Warriors, is close with Lakers free agent Dwight Howard. The two have long desired to play together. If Howard cannot achieve his top goal of playing with Chris Paul, teaming up with Ellis may become an option he would strongly consider. Ellis' goal in signing his original deal was to give him the flexibility to become a free agent in

Saying the Bank of Cuban is open might sound cute, but it is a stupid move. What is going to happen is the Lakers, Clippers and possibly the Rockets will be players for CP3 and DHoward. The Mavs are again being mentioned only for negotiating purposes. The Mega Super Stars want to play on either side of the coast in a large market. Dallas is a really nice town! Nice is nice but it isn't Los Angeles or New York. Getting a local car dealership commercial might be nice but to get the national attention and bigger endorsements you need to be in the biggest markets! You think CP3 is doing a national spot for State Farm if he is playing for the Pelicans? By saying the bank of Cuban is open, means we will be OVERPAYING for marginal players which will handicap us in the future of getting a max player. Josh Smith, Monta Ellis, Brandon Jennings, Andre Iguodala, etc are not max players and it sounds like Cubes might be willing to overspend to get them and keep the powder dry for next year? Lebron is NOT coming to Dallas, Bosh doesn't want to come home (and I wouldn't max him). Get ready for adding a couple of overpriced players and using a over the hill Dalembert. 41-41!! Saying the Bank of Cuban is open might sound cute, but it is a stupid move. What is going to happen is the Lakers, Clippers and possibly the Rockets will be players for CP3 and DHoward. The Mavs are again being mentioned only for negotiating purposes. The Mega Super Stars want to play on either side of the coast in a large market. Dallas is a really nice town! Nice is nice but it isn't Los Angeles or New York. Getting a local car dealership commercial might be nice but to get the national attention and bigger endorsements you need to be in the biggest markets! You think CP3 is doing a national spot for State Farm if he is playing for the Pelicans? By saying the bank of Cuban is open, means we will be OVERPAYING for marginal players which will handicap us in the future of getting a max player. Josh Smith, Monta Ellis, Brandon Jennings, Andre Iguodala, etc are not max players and it sounds like Cubes might be willing to overspend to get them and keep the powder dry for next year? Lebron is NOT coming to Dallas, Bosh doesn't want to come home (and I wouldn't max him). Get ready for adding a couple of overpriced players and using a over the hill Dalembert. 41-41!!

There might as well be a neon “FOR SALE” sign on the No. 13 pick. The Mavs aren’t just listening to offers for their lottery pick. They’re actively pursuing them, hoping to pick up a future asset while preventing the pick’s $1.655 million cap hold from getting on their books before free agency begins. What if the Mavs don’t part with the pick? A pair of point guards – Syracuse’s Michael Carter-Williams and Germany’s Dennis Schroeder – are the most intriguing possibilities.

Continuing to make his sales pitch to big-name free agents, Mark Cuban returned to the radio airwaves to detail his plan, writes Earl K. Sneed.

The Mavericks seem to have but one plan for the offseason: Plan Powder. Get Dwight or CP3. Get one at all costs. It's not a plan I'm particularly fond of, but it's the plan we're stuck with, like it or not. Regardless of whether Plan Powder is a massive success or a massive failure (because it can only be massive, one way or another), the Mavericks need one important thing: max money. They NEED max money, either for Dwight, for CP3, or for picking up high enough quality role players to fill out a decent roster. Max money is an absolute necessity. The Mavs have dug themselves in a hole. They're wildly mediocre, and it's really hard to get good again without getting really bad first. It may not even be possible without scoring the wildly unlikely D12 or CP3 in free agency. It'll take a lot of smarts, a lot of work from development, and...a lot of money. We here at Mavs Moneyball have consistently been of the mind that the Mavericks can't keep trying to manage by buying a good team. It takes development, the draft, trust, good scouting, and smarts. But if the Mavs are gonna get good without getting bad first, it's going to take all of that, plus the funds necessary to pick up a new cast. It turns out, regardless of how you play it, it takes a lot of funds when you have over $31 million committed between two players (Dirk and Marion). Without any of the disposable assets (expiring contracts, etc.), the Mavs have $19 million in cap space. That's $19 million to spend on a player for every position other than wings and power forwards and a bench. That's not max money, and it's not enough to build the team that everyone wants. Dirk has already said that he'll come back at a discount in 2014 to make the financial side of free agency easier, but there's nothing really the Mavs can do with his contract for the time being. More: Kirk on the Hole the Mavs Have Dug Chart of Mavs' Assets But there is one other thing the Mavs can do: address the Shawn Marion issue. If you don't love the Matrix, then...I dunno, I guess you're just wrong. He's the defensive anchor to a team that's hanging onto -- at best -- a passable defense; he keeps the defense from flying wildly off the cliff to "worst-in-the-league," at about 120 points allowed per 100 possessions. He has the weird ability to do absolutely whatever necessary at any point in time. He's the jack-of-all-trades who does just enough to make sure that every necessity for the Mavs is covered. He's a wildly underrated player who is probably the second most important foundation of this Mavericks team. The Mavericks shouldn't trade him. He's very good, he's not as valuable on the trade market as he is on the court, and he's integral to the team's scheme as it is typically laid out. These are per 48 minutes stats, above average in almost every category for his position, and this isn't even taking his foundational defense into account: Similarly, his shot chart for the last year is shockingly good, minus some dead-zone horror: But he is also being payed $9,316,796 next season, almost half of the Maverick's max available cap space. That's too much for the Mavericks to pay if they're going to try and pull something like Plan Powder. Paying Marion that much and getting Max money for a superstar (or, hopefully, for just really good role-players) are mutually exclusive goals. Luckily, there is a way to get that money off the books without trading him. Marion has an Early Termination Option on his contract for this next coming season, meaning that Marion can choose to terminate his contract now and enter free agency. In doing so, he opens up the ability to have the Mavs resign him at a discount, much in the same way as Dirk. Ultimately, whether the Mavericks have the kind of money and freedom in free agency that they want hinges on whether or not Shawn Marion will agree to keep playing NBA basketball for way less money. ----------------------------------------------------

It’d be news if the Mavericks weren’t interested in a starting-caliber free agent who plays point guard, shooting guard or center. At this point, the Mavs must explore all options and at least do their due diligence on every potential roster addition. It’s imperative to be prepared for Plans C, D, E, etc. in case they don’t land Chris Paul (looking like a longer and longer shot by the minute) or Dwight Howard. So an in-his-prime guard with a career average of 19.

Mark Cuban was once again on the radio, this time on KCTK-AM, to further explain the summer of intrigue for the Mavs. He spoke about the work he’s done in regards to flopping. That will be discussed later this week. The more pressing issues are geared towards free agency and the draft, both rapidly approaching. Here is the Quoteboard with highlights of Cuban’s appearance on The Ticket in regards to free agency and the draft. How do teams sign players as quickly as the signing period starts on July 1? “Usually that’s their own free agents so they’ve already had that agreed to. Other than that, July 1 sounds like a big day. July 1 isn’t really the big day. July 1, you make the phone calls and maybe you have a meeting, but I don’t want to be the first guy. I want to be the last guy. The more meetings you have on July 1, unless they’re your own free agents, the less likely you are to sign them. If you’re the last guy, the free agent might not get to you. “They’ll get to you, because the agent wants to scare the original team and the player wants to know their options and they want to know how you approach things. There’s a lot of upside and no downside to having those meetings.” On the two-year plan: “If we’re going after the biggest names, it’s going to be a two-summer issue, starting with this summer.” How do you feel about how you’ve set the team up to this point? Are you in a prime position right now? “I don’t know if prime is the right word, but we’re in a lot better position than we would have been. If you look at other teams like the Knicks, the Celtics, the Nets, that’s exactly the position we didn’t want to be in. You can’t sit here and say, ‘we’re dialed in, we’ve got it all set and we know exactly what’s going to happen’ because there’s a lot of risks in all the different alternatives. At the same time, if we’re locked in and have no choice, that’s a far worse position to be in. We’re in a good position, and we’ve got a lot of good opportunities to take advantage of. I can’t lie and say this is a slam dunk. There’s only one direction for us to go and that’s to get better.” On renouncing rights to your own guys and how that works when you’re going for free agents: “You’re not going to renounce anybody until you have an agreement and then you renounce. Even if you renounce a guy, you can still sign them. It just doesn’t mean he’s restricted any longer. “The other thing I tell fans is that there’s a lot of BS going out there about who has cap room to sign one guy, let alone two guys. We get to actually see the salaries. We know if such and such team says they’re going after two big free agents, they have to convince somebody to do a sign-and-trade so that puts them in the same boat as every team not over the tax threshold.” What position are you in when it comes to being able to sign multiple big free agents? “We’ve got enough room to sign one max-out guy. We have the opportunity to sign-and-trade for a second max-out guy like anybody else, but that’s much more difficult to accomplish.” For that to happen, you need assets available to send out for that sign-and-trade. “We do. It requires two sides to participate for a sign-and-trade. The player that’s part of the sign-and-trade has to participate and the team has got to participate and want the players you want to give up to take them back and that’s going to be very difficult in this market. Is it the case that the draft pick you have this year is less than appealing? “It is the case because the numbers are the numbers. If I’m going to talk about cap and CBA, I can’t BS my way around that. [The cap space for a pick] makes a huge difference on whether or not we have enough room to sign a max-out guy. “There’s risk involved. If somebody falls that we think is going to be a superstar and nobody else does, we’ll make the pick. I don’t think that’s likely. On the flip side, if you look at those teams that are over the tax threshold, they can’t sign-and-trade for a

The Mavericks’ backup plan if they miss out on a big fish apparently doesn’t recruit chasing restricted free agents. At least, that’s what Mark Cuban indicated during his radio appearance Monday afternoon. “I don’t know if there are any free agents that are requiring offer sheets that are on our radar right now,” Cuban said, pointing to the process of waiting for the player’s previous team to exercise its right to match as the reason.

The Mavericks’ big-fish recruiting pitch includes essentially offering an assistant GM job and a squeaky-clean salary-cap picture for next summer. We’ll see whether Chris Paul or Dwight Howard bite as they weigh the opportunity in Dallas against other options. Never mind the dollar details for a moment. The Mavs must sell that their situation is more attractive than staying in Los Angeles – where the Clippers’ front office is working feverishly to upgrade the supporting cast and coaching staff and the Lakers will also have loads of cap space next summer – or joining James Harden in Houston or CP3 and D12 forming a duo in Atlanta.

The 2013 NBA Draft is closing in and the Dallas Mavericks' plans continue to be a complete mystery. Whether we should be intrigued or terrified by this is up to personal choice. As expected, the summer has been dominated by questions of whether Chris Paul or Dwight Howard will leave their respective teams, and that should continue to be the case as the latest "report" is that the pair are considering playing together again. However unlikely a scenario it may be, Dallas obviously would love to be the team to make that happen, and as such, the organization may view the draft as little more than a salary obligation and impediment to completing their precious Big Three. Rumors have surfaced that Dallas' first choice may be to draft someone they can stash for a year, thus eliminating the cap hold for the #13 pick, or, failing that, trade the pick(possibly along with Shawn Marion and the $9+ million he's owed next year). With all that in mind, we learned today(the withdrawal deadline for early entry draft candidates) about the latest news on Croatian forward Dario Saric: Dario Saric (ranked No. 11 on our Big Board) is officially withdrawing from the draft. Story coming soon … — Chad Ford (@chadfordinsider) June 17, 2013 Saric was considered one of the top draft prospects in the draft, and perhaps the premiere foreign talent, making the 19 year old a potentially ideal "draft and stash" project for Dallas. The Mavericks, led by Donnie Nelson and a host of scouts, had reportedly flown to see Saric play in person in the Croatian playoffs, where the precocious point forward won tournament MVP. The noise on Dallas' interest in Saric had grown loud, but now the team must look elsewhere if they are to take a player on June 27th. Saric is not the only touted foreign player Dallas could stash for a year, but he may have been the only one good enough in Dallas' eyes to justify taking. It is possible that this may push Dallas further into considering simply dumping the pick to clear salary, or something else equally dubious. However, Dallas does continue to work out collegiate prospects, giving hope that they do, infact, intend to pick someone who can help next year. Here's the latest breakdown: Michael Carter-Williams Just finished my workout with Dallas! It went great #draftdreams — Michael Carter-Willi (@MCW1) June 12, 2013 Michael Carter-Williams, for those that don't know, is the tall, athletic point guard from Syracuse, and favorite of many a draftnik. He has been mocked anywhere from #6 to the late teens, but most consider him unlikely to fall to Dallas at pick #13. As recently as May, it was reported by Mike Fisher that MCW was #1 on Dallas' list of draft point guards, ahead of Trey Burke, and for a team with a clear need at the point position, Carter-Williams might be at or near the top of their draft board overall. As a prospect, Carter-Williams is tantalizing. At 6'6, with a 40+ inch vertical, and legitimate point skills, there may not be another guy in the NBA like him. The closest approximation might be Shaun Livingston, who appeared destined for stardom before one of the most horrific injuries you'll ever see derailed his career. His assist and steal rates corroborate the scouting report on both his great court vision and strong defensive instincts. Of course, there are rubs. He'll turn 22 in October, so he's a good deal older than the average sophomore, and that's important when you consider his upside, because there are still raw areas to his game. An extremely inconsistent shooter, MCW shot below 40% from the field, below 30% from three, and below 70% from the free throw line: the ignominious trifecta. He also had a sky high turnover rate, making his assist to turnover ratio less impressive than you might expect given what a prolific passer he was. The book here seems to be that Michael is prone to bad decisions, either in forcing pas