Dirk Nowitzki isn’t going to retire just yet, nor will he be leaving the Dallas Mavericks anytime soon. But the 37-year-old said he is going to opt out of the final year of his contract and become a free agent this summer.
“We had one more year on the contract, but I think this is the right thing to do,” Nowitzki said on 1310 The Ticket in Dallas, according to ESPN’s Tim MacMahon.
“We’re going to sit with Mark and Donnie obviously over the next few weeks and figure out how to improve this franchise again. Ever since after the championship, we’ve been basically a first-round exit. We’ve been a seven, eight seed. We’ve only won a few playoff games, and obviously the goal was to compete at the highest level in my last couple of years, so there is some moving to do, some thinking, some putting our heads together the next few weeks heading into free agency, heading into the draft. So this is just one move that hopefully starts a chain reaction for us to get better again, to compete really at a high level. We’ll see how it goes.”
This confirms what the Star-Telegram‘s Dwain Price said on Saturday. He also said Nowitzki’s new contract “will probably be a two-year deal with a player option for the second year.”
That Nowitzki wants to sit down with owner Mark Cuban and president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson to discuss how to make improvements to the team could suggest that he may be willing to take a pay cut if it means bringing in some top free agents this summer.
Remember, the Mavericks also need to re-sign Chandler Parsons in the offseason, and they could potentially go after Dwight Howard, who plans to opt out of his contract with the Houston Rockets.
Nowitzki has been loyal to the Mavericks for 18 seasons. All he wants is to compete at the highest level in what may be the last few years of his career.
