Yesterday, The Dallas Mavericks had a sit down at owner Mark Cuban's house with the much-coveted free agent Carmelo Anthony.
Before the meeting, Cuban made it known he was interested in finding out if Anthony wanted to win, or if he was just in it for the money. After all, Cuban wants to build another winning team, and as much as Carmelo is a great basketball player, he hasn't inspired great success for the teams he has played for in the past. In 11 seasons, he has only been on three teams that won a playoff series.
After sitting down with Chicago, Dallas and Houston earlier this week, Anthony is on his way to LA to visit the Lakers, then he will meet again with the Knicks. Apparently just about everyone wants Anthony; bad news is, only one team will get him.
For the Mavericks, if they don't get him, then they will not be sitting around. Dirk Nowitzki is approaching the end of his NBA career, and Cuban knows that. He want's to win before the big German departs, so the Mavs have other players in mind.
According to the Star Telegram, the Mavs also had contact with representatives of free agents Luol Deng, Chandler Parsons, Vince Carter and Shawn Marion. They also have interest in Al-Farouq Aminu, Trevor Ariza, Chris Andersen, D.J. Augustin and Isaiah Thomas.
But, according to the article, Parsons is the man they really want if Anthony goes somewhere else.
Apparently Dirk Nowitzki thinks Parsons will be the scoring threat that the team wants to give him some help. Last year Parsons averaged 16.6 points per game, and dragged in 5.5 rebounds.
Nowitzki told ESPN a few weeks ago that he really didn't think Melo would be coming to Dallas.
"He's obviously one of the most explosive scorers that we have in this league. If a player like that has your team on the radar, [president of basketball operations] Donnie [Nelson] and [owner] Mark [Cuban] obviously have to look at it. Do I think it's realistic? No," Nowitzki said.
With the current free agent feeding frenzy going on in Houston, Parsons could be the most realistic option, too.
