Dallas Mavericks: Dirk Nowitzki’s Title Window May Have Closed

Dirk Nowitzki is a stallion, but he can hardly carry the Mavericks to a championship on his own. The team’s first one was improbable, to say the least, but now, with an even older core and thinner supporting cast, a second go at it for one of the game’s greatest is damn near impossible.

Hardly anyone expected Dallas to successfully defend its title. Losing Caron Butler, Tyson Chandler and J.J. Barea was crippling to their depth chart. And yet, there wasn’t too steep a cause for concern. The Mavs, granted that they move a few contracts, were set to become major players for both Deron Williams and Dwight Howard this summer.

Howard’s decision to void his Early Termination Option shot one version of that blueprint to hell, at least for the time being. But that’s okay, because after a horrible season in New Jersey, Mark Cuban’s team was still an early favorite to land Williams.

But not anymore.

From ESPN.com:

Sources close to the situation told ESPN.com this week that the Mavs were convinced early on in their 2012 planning that having sufficient salary-cap space to be able to legitimately recruit Dwight Howard alongside Williams was the surest route to landing Williams. …. One source well-acquainted with Williams’ thinking told ESPN.com this weekend that the Mavericks, in their current state, have no better than a “50-50 shot” of getting D-Will’s signature in July … despite the fact that the Nets aren’t any closer to landing Howard than they are.

The Mavericks are officially no longer a powerhouse. Their Lamar Odom experiment failed miserably and two of their most valuable role players, in Jason Kidd and Jason Terry, hit the open market this summer. And unless Williams is an avid fan of Shawn Marion and Rodrigue Beaubois, that leaves Nowitzki as Dallas’ only enticing asset.

Here’s the catch, though. Nowitzki is 33 going on 34, and that’s a tough sell, when it’s the only sell, for the 27-year-old Williams. Why should he commit long term to an aging team whose best player could drop off at anytime?

Cuban and the Mavericks always seem to figure it out, but this isn’t just about replacing Chandler, or even Kidd and Terry. This is about one of the NBA’s greatest players, approaching his twilight years, a reality he simply cannot stave off.

The Mavericks have prided themselves on depth for the better part of a decade, but suddenly, their unsettlingly porous, and their greatest asset, in Nowitzki, has become a borderline liability because of a number next to his name.

Without another star, without a sidekick to shoulder some of Dallas’ burden, Nowitzki’s title window has closed. Ironically enough, though, the window is also closing on the Mavericks’ chance to land that prolific partner for Nowitzki.

You do the math.