Don’t be fooled by Dirk Nowitzki’s two-year, $50 million deal with the Dallas Mavericks. He may not have that much basketball left in him.
From Stephen Hunt of Today’s Fastbreak:
“I always said I wanted to kind of take it year-by-year. Signing a two-year deal doesn’t mean I necessarily have to play those two years. I think we’ll see how next year goes, how the body responds and then we’ll make that decision again next year,” Nowitzki said. “But obviously, I would love to play the next two years and then just see how it goes.”
Bet on Nowitzki playing beyond 2016-17. As of now, he has 25 million reasons to keep going after next season.
Of course, Dirk’s deal with the Mavericks isn’t necessarily a two-year agreement. Dallas holds a team option for that $25 million ahead of 2017-18, which it could decline for the sake of extra cap flexibility in free agency.
From there, though the Mavericks forfeit Nowitzki’s Bird rights, they could still technically bring him back. They just wouldn’t be able to journey over the cap to re-sign him. And that’s fine. If the Mavericks go this route, it’s because they’re adding impact talent. And if Nowitzki still wants to play, he’ll surely take a pay cut, as he’s done before, to play with that talent.
Still, the moral of the story here is don’t assume Nowitzki has two years left in him just because he signed a two-year deal. The length is almost irrelevant given its structure. So make sure to bask in Nowitzki’s ability while you can, because his timeline for retirement isn’t, as he says, etched in stone.
