Now that the marathon known as the NBA season is winding down, the 22 franchises who have packed their bags for the summer and the players who play for those franchises have started to look forward to the 2016 off season.
18-year veteran and greatest Dallas Maverick of all time Dirk Nowitzki has announced that he will opt out of the final year of his contract in Dallas and become a free agent.
Report: Dirk Nowitzki to opt out of Mavericks contract https://t.co/88Ng1T4XLi
— Kurt Helin (@basketballtalk) May 2, 2016
Dirk has already stated that he has no intentions or desire to truly enter free agency and entertain the thought of wearing another jersey, he just wants to sign a final two-year contract to end his days as a Dallas Maverick.
He announced his intentions to opt out of his current deal and sign a new contract with Dallas on a Dallas sports talk radio show Monday morning:
“We had one more year on the contract, but I think this is the right thing to do,” Dirk said on The Ticket 1310 AM Dallas. “We’ll sit down with Mark [Cuban] and Donnie [Nelson] in the next few weeks and figure out how to improve this franchise. There’s some moving to do. We’ll put our heads together in the next few weeks. This was just one move that hopefully starts a chain reaction for us to get better and really compete at a high level.”
Dirk re-iterated his lifelong loyalty to the Mavericks and when he decided that he would never even consider playing elsewhere:
“No, once we won the championship,” he said, “that would be the only scenario where I’d go somewhere else at the end if I was to hang on and [try to win a title].”
Dirk was set to make about $8 million in 2016-17, knowing his team first approach one can expect him to sign a similar level deal or for less even with the cap rising substantially in order to allow the Mavericks to revamp the roster and compete.
