The Dallas Morning News came up with a lengthy interview with Nowitzki which discussed things that led to his concurring to a discounted new pact with the Dallas Mavericks and the heart-to-heart talk he had with team owner Mark Cuban. The 2007-07 MVP admitted that he never had any doubts that he will be back with the Mavericks and vice versa. The Mavericks and Nowitzki are simply made for each other. He also pointed out that free-agency is a difficult task and he simple hates it. He can’t imagine himself going through the process LeBron James is currently undergoing. It just took him a few days to decide that its only Dallas for him or nothing.
"Obviously, a couple teams were interested. But it never really got to the point where I was ready to listen. My heart's here. To go through the whole process that everybody's going through, I don't like that. It was just weird. And to have two-hour presentations when I know I'm not really interested. I didn't see any sense in that. It didn't really get that far.
“When it was all said and done, to me, I feel like I started this thing here and after 12 years now, I feel like I got unfinished business here. I just wanted to not run away from something that's right there. I met with Cuban, and he said: 'You know we're all in this together.’ And he's right. We started this and it wouldn't even feel right to go somewhere else and chase something that nobody can promise me.
"I see it this way, if you don't get LeBron and you don't get Wade, are you going to give the max to somebody else and lock yourself in with a player who's not going to get you over the hump?. You got to be a little careful with locking yourself into something with a max contract with somebody that's going to give you 55 wins, and you're still going to lose in the second or third round.
"So to me, if you could get Wade or LeBron, you got to go for it. But other than that, it's tough. You don't want to completely screw the organization over for four or five years if it's not going to put it over the top.
"To me, we got enough time here in four years to go for it. And if we shouldn't get anyone here this year [in a trade], we still got to leave it out there and go for it. And four years is a long time. We can make something happen eventually.
"There are some scenarios out there that would be very good for this organization. More than anything, I wanted to still know that we're still working on this. I didn't want to feel stuck with another 50 wins and a first-round exit. Obviously, you never know in this business. Sometimes you get something. Sometimes you don't. I just wanted a reassurance that we're going to try. I definitely needed to hear that from Mark's mouth.
"Mark has been terrific to me. The stuff he's helped me with, especially last year with all the stuff I went through. He's been more than an owner to me. We've had a friendship-type of relationship and Donnie [Nelson] has been great, too. It really was a no-brainer.
"If somebody could tell me, 'you come next year and we'll win it,' obviously I would have looked at it very, very hard. But nobody knows what's really going to happen and what's going on. So it felt great to me. This has been my new home for so long. Something unbelievable would have had to come up.
"Relieved is a good word. I can't even imagine LeBron going through this whole thing for two years, or Bosh being asked every other day for the last year. I'm so happy that it was only a couple days. That was already way, way enough for me.
"From Day 1, we knew that me and Cubes would have to work at this together if we want to win. To me, it was never really about money. Obviously, I can't sell myself way short of market value. I can't do that. But other than that, I'm more than happy to help this organization and give it a chance to go to another level by bringing somebody else in. So we'll see what happens."
No comments:
Post a Comment