2015/16 D-League Usage Report: Mavericks
The NBA’s relationship with the D-League continues to grow, and this season a total of 19 NBA teams had one-to-one affiliations with D-League clubs. Those NBA organizations without their own affiliates were required to assign players to D-League clubs associated with other NBA franchises. D-League teams could volunteer to take on the assigned players, and if no volunteers emerged, the players were assigned at random.
This significant change from the 2014/15 season came about after the Pacers purchased the Fort Wayne Mad Ants and turned them into their one-to-one partner for the 2015/16 campaign. Other NBA teams have interest in following suit in the years ahead, and the NBA’s ultimate goal for the D-League is for all 30 NBA franchises to have their own D-League squads. You can view the complete list of D-League affiliates here.
We at Hoops Rumors are recapping the D-League-related activity for the 2015/16 campaign for each team and we’ll continue with the Dallas Mavericks, whose D-League affiliate is the Texas Legends:
The Mavs made 18 assignments for the 2015/16 campaign, sending three players to the D-League for a total of 20 days. Listed below are all the assignments and recalls made by Dallas for the 2015/16 season:
- November 20th: Assigned Justin Anderson (1st) — Recalled November 22nd
- November 20th: Assigned Salah Mejri (1st) — Recalled November 22nd
- December 11th: Assigned Justin Anderson (2nd) — Recalled December 12th
- December 11th: Assigned Salah Mejri (2nd) — Recalled December 12th
- December 11th: Assigned Jeremy Evans (1st) — Recalled December 12th
- December 12th: Assigned Justin Anderson (3rd) — Recalled December 12th
- December 12th: Assigned Salah Mejri (3rd) — Recalled December 13th
- December 18th: Assigned Justin Anderson (4th) — Recalled December 20th
- December 18th: Assigned Salah Mejri (4th) — Recalled December 20th
- December 19th: Assigned Jeremy Evans (2nd) — Recalled December 20th
- December 26th: Assigned Justin Anderson (5th) — Recalled December 27th
- December 26th: Assigned Salah Mejri (5th) — Recalled December 27th
- January 2nd: Assigned Salah Mejri (6th) — Recalled January 3rd
- January 21st: Assigned Justin Anderson (6th) — Recalled January 22nd
- January 21st: Assigned Jeremy Evans (3rd) — Recalled January 22nd
- January 21st: Assigned Salah Mejri (7th) — Recalled January 22nd
- February 20th: Assigned Justin Anderson (7th) — Recalled February 21st
- February 20th: Assigned Jeremy Evans (4th) — Recalled February 21st
Here is how the Mavs’ players performed while on assignment to the D-League this season:
- Justin Anderson: In seven D-League appearances, the swingman averaged 23.0 points, 4.6 rebounds and 3.4 assists in 38.3 minutes per outing. Anderson’s shooting line was .460/.333/.792.
- Jeremy Evans: In four contests for the Legends, Evans notched averages of 16.8 points, 9.0 rebounds and 1.5 steals in 35.8 minutes per game. His slash line was .500/.389/.727.
- Salah Mejri: The center appeared in eight D-League games on the season and averaged 8.5 points, 7.8 rebounds and 2.9 blocks in 23.8 minutes per contest. Mejri’s shooting line was .566/.125/.875.
Deron Williams To Opt Out; Mavs Want Him Back
Deron Williams plans to turn down his player option worth more than $5.621MM and hit free agency to seek a multiyear contract this summer, sources told Tim MacMahon of ESPN.com (ESPN Now link). The Mavericks and the point guard have mutual interest in doing a new deal, according to MacMahon.
The 11-year veteran who turns 32 in June likely needs offseason surgery to address a sports hernia. The Jeff Schwartz client said in the aftermath of the Mavs’ playoff ouster this week that he’d love to return to Dallas, and coach Rick Carlisle said he’d also like to see him return. President of basketball operations Donnie Nelson pointed to what he saw as a renewed sense of enthusiasm in Williams’ play this season, the first for Williams with the Mavericks.
Dallas will have a clearer shot at opening enough cap room to sign a player for the middle-tier maximum salary of an estimated $26MM with Williams’ option out of the way, as we noted earlier this week, but re-signing Williams would probably come at a cost greater than the value of his option (Twitter link). MacMahon thinks the market will afford Williams a decent raise on the close to $5.379MM salary he took home this year. Tim Bontemps of The Washington Post sees Williams ending up with at least twice as much as his option would have given him (Twitter link).
Much of the free agent money around the league last summer had already been committed by the time Williams worked his buyout from the Nets and signed with the Mavericks in mid-July. He averaged 14.1 points, 5.8 assists and 2.3 turnovers in 32.4 minutes per game this season, production not too far removed from what he put up in his final season with Brooklyn.
Is Williams the right point guard for the Mavericks? Leave a comment to share your thoughts.
Pachulia Touts Mavs As Free Agent Destination
- Soon-to-be free agent Mavericks center Zaza Pachulia wishes he had a lifetime contract and doesn’t understand why more players don’t choose to play in Dallas, observes Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News. “It’s my first year for me being here so I don’t exactly know what happened previously,” Pachulia said. “But the one thing, whoever will come here and play for this team and this organization would love it. Very few percentage of the players — very few — wouldn’t like it. The city, the fans, the organization, the personality and the heart. This team is all about winning. So if you are a winner definitely this is the place to be.”
Offseason Salary Cap Digest: Dallas Mavericks
The salary cap puzzle for the Mavericks this summer depends largely on three player options worth more than $30MM. Chandler Parsons will almost certainly decline his to seek more on the open market, and Dirk Nowitzki has said he plans to opt in as long as the Mavs don’t start a rebuilding project. Deron Williams is undecided, though his is the smallest of the options. A Williams opt-in would nonetheless make it a tight squeeze for the team to sign a player for the middle-tier max of roughly $25MM, presuming the Mavs also re-sign Parsons. Here’s a look at the numbers for the Mavs as owner Mark Cuban and president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson prepare for the summer ahead.
Guaranteed Salary
- Wesley Matthews ($17,145,838)
- Devin Harris ($4,227,996)
- J.J. Barea ($4,096,950)
- Justin Anderson ($1,514,160)
- Jeremy Evans ($1,227,286)
- (Maurice Ndour $437,318) — Salary remaining from release via stretch provision
- (Gal Mekel $315,759) — Salary remaining from release via stretch provision
- Total: $28,965,307
Player Options
- Chandler Parsons ($16,023,000)
- Dirk Nowitzki ($8,692,184)
- Deron Williams ($5,621,026)
- Total: $30,336,210
Team Options
- None
Non-Guaranteed Salary
- JaVale McGee ($1,403,611)
- Salah Mejri ($874,636)
- Total: $2,278,247
Restricted Free Agents (Qualifying Offers/Cap Holds)
- Dwight Powell ($1,180,431/$1,180,431)
Unrestricted Free Agents (Cap Holds)
- Chandler Parsons ($19,969,950) — Pending player option
- Dirk Nowitzki ($12,500,001) — Pending player option
- Zaza Pachulia ($9,880,000)
- Raymond Felton ($7,505,595)
- Deron Williams ($6,454,769) — Pending player option
- David Lee ($2,502,805)
- Charlie Villanueva ($980,431)
- Total: $59,793,551
Projected Salary Cap: $92,000,000
The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.
Mavs Say JaVale McGee Still Part Of Future Plans
Thunder small forward Kevin Durant, who is set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer, sees some parallels between himself and Mavs big man Dirk Nowitzki regarding their importance to their respective franchises, Berry Tramel of The Oklahoman relays. “Dirk has been a model of how you should handle things,” Durant said. “I’m just trying to do things my way as well. There’s a lot that comes with it. Dirk has handled it about as good as anybody’s ever handled it in this league. I try to learn from guys like him, Kobe Bryant. From everybody that’s been in that position, handling the situation as being a franchise guy.”
- The Mavericks will seek to add a center this offseason but still consider JaVale McGee a part of their future plans, writes Eddie Sefko of The Dallas Morning News. “I don’t want to leave out JaVale McGee,” coach Rick Carlisle said. “He came to us as a guy who was recovering from a very serious [leg] injury. And his deal is a two-year deal and we felt it was going to take two years to get back to being completely healthy and the player he completely was. He’s regained his health, regained his footing and he and Salah Mejri right now are the two centers we have. We’ll certainly look to add somebody else. But we’re going to be looking at those two guys as very important.”
Deron Williams Likely To Require Surgery
- Mavs point guard Deron Williams‘ sports hernia is getting worse and he will likely need offseason surgery to repair the injury, as Earl K. Sneed of Mavs.com relays (Twitter links). Williams, who has a player option worth $5,621,026 for next season, impressed the team and seemed to have fun for the first time in the past few seasons, executive Donnie Nelson said, according to Sneed.
Mavs Rumors: Nowitzki, Parsons, Howard, D-Will
Dirk Nowitzki said today that he definitely won’t retire, notes Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com (on Twitter), and the German-born star dismissed the idea he won’t be back with the team next year, calling it “crazy talk,” according to Mavs radio play-by-play announcer Chuck Cooperstein (Twitter link). Still, Nowitzki has on multiple occasions included the caveat that the Mavs have to avoid rebuilding in order for him to remain committed to the franchise, and coach Rick Carlisle expressed a level of uncertainty about Nowitzki’s future in Dallas. The power forward, who turns 38 in June, has a player option worth about $8.692MM for next season.
See more from Dallas in the wake of the Mavs’ playoff elimination Monday:
- Chandler Parsons made a public recruiting pitch to Dwight Howard today, as MacMahon relays (ESPN Now link). The Mavs don’t want to pay Howard the max, as MacMahon reported previously, but Parsons is fond of the idea of again pairing with his one-time Rockets teammate. “I think he can still dominate the game,” Parsons said. “I think he can still be a great player in this league. And I think he’s going to leave Houston, so why not come here?”
- Parsons, who like Howard is expected to opt out and hit free agency this summer, also gave further indication that he prefers to stay in Dallas, according to MacMahon (ESPN Now link). “Dallas is home to me,” Parsons said. “I loved it here. I came here to be a great player and to win a lot of games, and I’ve yet to do that here. So I feel that I have a lot of unfinished business here that I’d love to continue and grow into the player that I saw myself being when I signed here. The quicker we can get that done allows me to start recruiting and doing that whole thing.”
- Deron Williams doesn’t know what he’ll do with his player option worth slightly more than $5.621MM for next season, but he said today that he’d love to be back with the Mavs next season whether he opts in or out, tweets Earl K. Sneed of Mavs.com. Carlisle said he wants the same outcome, MacMahon adds (Twitter link).
- Raymond Felton‘s contract is up at season’s end and, unlike Williams, he doesn’t have an option to decide on, but he said he plans to move into a house in Dallas and would like to re-sign, as Sneed also passes along (on Twitter). Felton has spent the last two seasons with the Mavs.
Cuban Irks Durant; Nowitzki Not Certain To Return?
The chatter about the notion of Kevin Durant joining the Spurs in free agency is “eerily similar” to the talk last season that surrounded the idea of LaMarcus Aldridge signing with San Antonio before it came to fruition, according to Zach Lowe of ESPN.com. Of course, that doesn’t mean Durant is bound for the Alamo, or even that the Spurs are the favorites for him, but it bears watching, and certainly, it would appear they’re in better position than the Mavericks after Durant issued a harsh rebuke Monday to comments from Mark Cuban. The Mavs owner said before Monday’s game that while he views Durant as a superstar, Russell Westbrook doesn’t meet that definition, as Tim Cato of SB Nation’s Mavs Moneyball relays. Media asked Westbrook about the remark after the game, but Durant, who was by Westbrook’s side, fielded the question and called Cuban an “idiot,” according to The Oklahoman’s Anthony Slater.
- Dirk Nowitzki reiterated that he plans to play out his contract and doesn’t intend to play for any team other than the Mavericks, but he again threw in the caveat that such would only be true as long as the Mavs don’t go into rebuilding, as Tim MacMahon of ESPN.com passes along (ESPN Now link). The iconic power forward has a player option worth about $8.692MM for 2016/17.
- Mavs coach Rick Carlisle made comments that seemed to caution against the widely held assumption that Nowitzki will definitely be back with Dallas next season, as MacMahon relays in another ESPN Now link. “We’ve got to hope that this isn’t Dirk’s last game as a Maverick,” Carlisle said after Monday’s season-ending loss. “Now he has the option to become a free agent. I’m ready to get on a plane and go to Germany and recruit him to be back, but I don’t think we can take that for granted. I think we have to give him that kind of respect. He’s done so much for our organization. He’s sacrificed so much. And it’s been such a life-changing experience for me to be around a player of that magnitude for eight years. It’s indescribable. I think he will be back, but I don’t want anybody to just assume anything, because he’s been too great.”
Playoffs Won't Affect Cuban's Free Agent Plans
- Playoff results won’t have any effect on the Mavericks‘ postseason plans, relays Erik Horne of The Oklahoman. Sixth-seeded Dallas currently trails its first-round series with the Thunder, 3-1. “We know the guys we like,” owner Mark Cuban said. “We know our core guys and we’ll try to add to it.”
Carlisle Praises Play Of Deron Williams
- Mavs coach Rick Carlisle praised the play of Deron Williams, who averaged 14.1 points, 2.9 rebounds and 5.8 assists in 65 appearances this season for Dallas, as Eddie Sefko of The Dallas Morning News relays. “He had a very strong year,” Carlisle said of Williams. “He played great basketball for us. The only thing that derailed him were some health issues.” The point guard is done for the remainder of the playoffs with a sports hernia and may need offseason surgery to correct the issue, Sefko notes. Williams has a player option for 2016/17 worth $5,621,026, but he could become an unrestricted free agent if he chooses to opt out.