Western Notes: Nowitzki, Wiggins, Knight

Mavs owner Mark Cuban was never concerned that Dirk Nowitzki would elect to head elsewhere this offseason, as he detailed to Brandon Robinson of CBSSports.com. “Dirk wasn’t even in the country and people couldn’t even reach him when free agency started,” Cuban told Robinson “I basically told him, look, you tell me the price and it actually started lower. His agent said ‘how about this much’ and we said ‘we’ll have a little more money, we’ll give you more’ and as the numbers started getting bigger and bigger, it was like ‘what about this number?’ ‘We’ll give you more.’ Finally, it was like ‘this is what we got left, take it!’

We wanted to make it a two-year deal with a team option so that people wouldn’t speculate that he was going to retire because Dirk is the type of guy, he’s just a good guy. He would hate going city to city to city and everyone asking him if he was going to retire because he has no intention of retiring after this year and, with the team option that we have, he gave us the flexibility that said ‘if we find somebody that we can send the money to that he likes, we all like, then let’s do it and if not, let’s give the money to Dirk again which I’m fine with too.

Here’s more from out West:

  • Andrew Wiggins expects big things this season from himself and his Wolves teammates, adding that the addition of Tom Thibodeau as coach and executive will make him a better player, Martin Rickman of Dime Magazine relays. “We’ve done a lot of good things this year. And we beat a lot of good teams – we can beat any team out there on a given day,” Wiggins told Rickman. “But we’re getting stronger. We’re getting older. We’re getting more experienced. And we’re building chemistry. We’re just getting better every game. We have a lot of things to accomplish this coming year. We’re all looking forward to it, and our expectations are getting higher. We want more. We’re young, and hungry, and we want to see the playoffs.
  • The Suns are excited about what Brandon Knight can do in 2016/17 if he remains healthy, Paul Coro of The Arizona Republic relays. “He has the ability to play either guard spot,” Suns GM Ryan McDonough said of Knight. “He can play the 1. He can play the 2. He’s an elite shooter. People who just saw Brandon playing last year when he was a little bit banged up and wasn’t 100% probably don’t realize how well he shoots the ball when he’s healthy and right. We think, with our top four or five guards, they will be interchangeable. They’ll be able to play either spot. We have at least four, maybe five guys now, who can get in the paint, break down defenses and kick to open shooters.
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