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DALLAS – Rick Carlisle probably can’t make it through dinner with his wife and daughter without discussing the Dallas Mavericks’ need to improve defensively this season.

Without prompting, Carlisle brought up defense seconds into his press conference at media day. It was the sole focus of the Mavs’ opening practice of training camp. He readily admits that it’s an obsession for him.

“I just look at the roster and I just know that has to be our emphasis,” Carlisle said. “We’re going to work hard on our offense, but our major emphasis has got to be the defensive end.”

There’s no point in dancing around the issue. The Mavs, who tied for 18th in the NBA in defensive efficiency last season (107.1 points allowed per 100 possessions), must allow significantly fewer points to have a prayer of being a playoff factor.

The challenge for Carlisle’s Mavs: Accomplish that mission with a starting lineup that is flawed at that end of the floor.

Dirk Nowitzki has never been shy about acknowledging that his athletic limitations make individual defense difficult for him. That’s also the case for point guard Jose Calderon. Monta Ellis usually ranks among the league leaders in steals, but he’s been a high-risk, high-reward defender whose size (6-foot-3, 185 pounds) puts him at a significant disadvantage against most shooting guards.

“We’ve all got to pick up the slack for them,” said Shawn Marion, the one player on the roster who has earned a reputation for being a defensive stopper. “It’s a team effort. We’ve got to collectively help each other.”

That’s what made signing Samuel Dalembert, the last real interior defensive presence available in free agency, so important this summer. He understands that he’s being paid primarily to rebound and help mask the defensive flaws of other Mavs.

“That’s the piece the team needs,” said Dalembert, who has career averages of 8.1 rebounds and 1.8 blocks per game as a part-time player. “I watched them last year. They have no problem scoring, but defensive-wise, they want to be back where they were three years ago. That’s our focus. That’s our goal.

“You’re not going to try to make a guy who has not been a defensive player a defensive player overnight, but what you can do is you can make them feel comfortable. Give me your best and if you get beat, I’ve got your back. That’s the key.”

The Mavs are counting on Dalembert to be the anchor of the defense, but it’s unrealistic to expect him to clean up messes on a consistent basis. That’s why “collectively” is a buzzword in Mavs camp.

"On paper, we don’t have a group of guys that look like individual defensive stoppers," Carlisle said. "I mean, Shawn Marion is still one of the best guys in the game. Vince [Carter] has good analytic numbers on defense. Dirk is better than you think he is on defense. But we don’t have any first- or second-team all-defensive guys on our team, so we have to do it collectively."

Carlisle repeatedly cites what he considers the Mavs’ most troubling defensive stat from last season: They allowed the second most made free throws in the NBA. It’s proof that they were a poor perimeter defensive team that couldn’t stop teams from attacking off the dribble without fouling.

That’s one facet of defense that Carlisle will hammer during camp and continue harping on all season. Another is 1-on-1 defense. Transition defense – and not giving up good looks on 3s early in the shot clock – is another.

It’s about understanding the concepts of the Mavs’ defensive scheme, which was good enough to win a title in 2011, and accepting the sacrifices necessary to make the whole more than the sum of the parts.

“It starts with an attitude and an understanding of how important it is,” Carlisle said. “I’ve got to make sure guys know how important it is. That’s the starting point.”

DALLAS – Samuel Dalembert, the Dallas Mavericks’ new starting center, offers one simple guarantee: He will play hard.

“That’s one thing I can promise,” the 6-foot-11 Dalembert said after his first official practice in Dallas. “I can control that.”

An inconsistent motor was the biggest knock on Dalembert, a 12-year veteran who is playing for his fifth team in five seasons, during his brief stint with the Milwaukee Bucks. Dalembert’s playing time was sporadic during a season he describes as the “dark side,” but he proudly points out that he was productive when he did get on the floor.

The stats support Dalembert’s point. His per-36 minute averages last season (14.7 points, 13.0 rebounds, 2.5 blocks) were very respectable. The Mavs would be thrilled with that type of production from Dalembert, who won’t have to worry about minutes in Dallas as long as he plays with energy and passion.

“You’ve got to seize the opportunity and embrace it and give your best and make it work,” Dalembert said. “You can make the judgment for yourself. When I do play on the floor, do I produce? I produce. The key is the stats don’t lie. The tape don’t lie.

“If you’re talking about inconsistent offensively, yeah, I’m not a scorer. Nobody passed me the ball [in Milwaukee]. Some games, I’m going to have six points. Some games, I’m going to have 15 points. Some games, I’m going to have 30 points. But that’s not what I’m focusing on. My focus is, when I do play, defensively do I change the game? Do I bring energy?

“If you can see that, if I’m consistent with that, if you give me consistent time, now we have something to talk about.”

The slate is clean for Dalembert in Dallas, which gave him a two-year, $7.6 million deal with the second season partially guaranteed to replace disappointing, defensively-challenged stopgap center Chris Kaman. Veterans such as Dirk Nowitzki and Shawn Marion are excited to play with an athletic big man again whose best attributes are his ability to block shots and rebound.

The Mavs are depending on Dalembert to be the backbone of a defense that needs to be drastically improved.

“He’s going to fit in well,” Marion said. “He’s going to make it a lot harder to come in there. When they know there’s a shot-blocker in there, they have a hesitation to go in there. They know somebody is going to either give them a hard foul or block their shot, guys don’t want to go in there.”

If Dalembert delivers that sort of presence, he can reshape his reputation while playing a key role on a playoff team. And fulfill his promise.

DALLAS -- For Monta Ellis, “efficient” might as well be a four-letter word.

He’s become a sort of analytics antihero the past couple seasons, a model of scoring inefficiency. Frankly, Ellis is sick and tired of hearing about it, which he made clear by shaking his head and chuckling when the subject was broached during the Dallas Mavericks’ media day Monday.

“I’m going to get criticized for what I do anyway,” Ellis said. “The only thing I can do is laugh it off because there’s a lot of guys that take a lot of bad shots in this league. A lot of bad shots. Don’t nobody want to talk about them, but everybody talks about shots that Monta take[s]. The only thing I’m going to do is take the punches and prove everybody wrong.”

PODCAST
Dallas Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle joins Fitzsimmons and Durrett at Mavericks media day to discuss his expectations for the upcoming season. Listen

There are a lot of guys in the NBA who take bad shots, but precious few put up more bricks than Ellis did in his final season with the Milwaukee Bucks, which explains why he settled for signing a three-year, $25 million deal with the Mavs that was far shy of his asking price when free agency opened.

Only former Bucks backcourt partner Brandon Jennings had a lower field goal percentage than Ellis (41.6) among players who averaged at least 15 points per game. Ellis’ 3-point percentage (28.7) was the lowest among qualifiers. And, according to ESPN Stats & Information, Ellis had the worst field goal percentage on off-the-dribble jumpers (32.3) among players who launched at least 250 of those shots.

If that continues this season, Ellis will be a terrible investment for the Mavs. But his contract could end up being a bargain if Ellis, whom Dirk Nowitzki excitedly describes as the most explosive teammate he’s ever had, is willing to do what it takes to drastically improve his scoring efficiency.

“What I’m saying is, I’m going to play Monta basketball,” said Ellis, who has a career average of 19.4 points per game on a respectable 45.6 percent shooting from the floor. “If y’all want to criticize, criticize.”

Asked to clarify what exactly “Monta basketball” is, Ellis exhibits that he gets it, as much as he disdains the discussion.

“Getting out, running, taking the shots that’s appropriate and attack the basket more,” Ellis said. “I think over the past few years I got to a point where I was settling for jump shots. At first, I attacked the basket, never was the high-end guy to shoot 3s. I think I put a lot more 3s into my game, so I’m going to get back to attacking the basket, getting out there and being a one-man fast break and bring pace to this team.”

Count on coach Rick Carlisle hammering that mentality into Ellis’ head.

Carlisle spent time this summer working with Ellis on his jumper and making adjustments regarding balance and mechanics, but the Mavs don’t want Ellis launching a bunch from long distance. They definitely don’t want Ellis to average four 3-point attempts per game, as he did last season, especially if many of them are contested and/or off the dribble.

Ellis has proven he’s capable of lighting it up without exhibiting the shot discretion of a lovesick sailor. In 2007-08, Ellis shot 53.1 percent from the floor while averaging 20.2 points per game for the Golden State Warriors, attempting less than one 3-pointer per game. Not coincidentally, the burden of the scoring load didn’t fall on Ellis’ shoulders that season, when Baron Davis and Stephen Jackson also averaged more than 20 points for the 48-win Warriors.

The Mavs want Ellis to do what he does best: attack the basket. They believe he’ll have ample opportunities to do so while playing with Nowitzki, the sweetest shooting 7-footer of all time, and Jose Calderon, a pass-first point guard who led the league in 3-point percentage last season.

“We’ve got to put him in the right situations and positions,” Carlisle said. “That’s going to give Monta opportunities to find space. When you get him moving toward the rim with space, he’s a great finisher. He can get to the free throw line, and he’s an underrated assist guy. I think all that works.”

If it works as well as the Mavs hope, the word “efficient” might not sound so offensive to Ellis.

The Dallas Mavericks announced today they have signed forward Renaldo Balkman. Per team policy, terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Balkman (6-foot-8, 208 pounds) was selected by the New York Knicks with the 20th overall selection in the 2006 NBA draft. He holds career averages of 4.0 points, 3.5 rebounds and 13.9 minutes in 221 career games with New York and the Denver Nuggets.

The Staten Island, N.Y., native is a Puerto Rican-American who most recently played professionally for Brujos de Guayama in Puerto Rico. Balkman played collegiately at South Carolina, where he was named to the Southeastern Conference all-tournament team and National Invitation Tournament (NIT) Most Valuable Player in his final season with the Gamecocks.

With the signing, the Mavericks’ current roster stands at 20 players.

DALLAS – There are no guarantees with 35-year-old knees that have logged more than 45,000 NBA minutes and many, many more in international ball.

That being said, Dirk Nowitzki has done everything in his power to prevent knee problems from sabotaging his statistics for a third consecutive season.

PODCAST
Dallas Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle joins Fitzsimmons and Durrett at Mavericks media day to discuss his expectations for the upcoming season. Listen

Dirk’s decline since the Dallas Mavericks’ 2011 title run has been well chronicled. He admittedly wasn’t adequately prepared for the end of the lockout and hectic schedule that ensued, leading to knee soreness and swelling and needing an early-season sabbatical to work his way into shape by his Hall of Fame standards. After a summer of hard work, Nowitzki was surprised by swelling in his knee last preseason, then missed the first two months of the regular season while recovering from arthroscopic surgery.

Now he’s coming off his two least productive seasons since establishing himself as an NBA superstar. Not coincidentally, the Mavs don’t have a playoff win over the last two years.

All that made for an extraordinarily determined Dirk during an extremely long offseason in Dallas, which missed the playoffs for the first time in a dozen years.

“I feel good now,” Nowitzki said during Monday’s media day on the eve of training camp. “Going into camp, I did a lot of work. I started working out in May, probably the earliest for a long, long time. Hopefully I’ll feel good going into the season and I can stay injury-free.

“But I feel now better than I have at any point last year, so I think that’s very encouraging to myself, it’s very important also from a mental standpoint and hopefully I can show it.”

Added coach Rick Carlisle: “He’s a guy that has such love and respect for the game and such pride in his own performance and taking responsibility in winning and losing for this franchise. He knows how important his health is to his game and our game and all of us and all of our fans. This is serious business. His effort has completely matched up with the level of importance.”

The Mavs failed in their two-year quest to make Nowitzki the second-best player on the roster, settling for signing Monta Ellis, Jose Calderon and other complementary players after failing to hook big fish Dwight Howard and Chris Paul in free agency.

But the biggest misconception about the under-the-radar Mavs, according to owner Mark Cuban, is that they no longer have a superstar. He’s convinced that Nowitzki, who had an 11-season All-Star streak snapped last season, can return to elite form in 2013-14, pointing to the late-career success as historically great power forwards such as Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett and Karl Malone as proof of the possibility.

Dirk acknowledges that the doubts about his ability to still perform to the standard he set for himself served as ample summer motivational fodder.

“Competitors, they always find ways to motivate themselves,” said Nowitzki, who averaged 17.3 points and 6.8 rebounds in his down 2012-13 campaign, including 18.9 points and 7.7 rebounds after the All-Star break. “When I first got here, ‘He can’t do it, he’s not ready for the NBA,’ then once I established himself, ‘He can’t win it all.’ So I think there’s always stuff you can use as motivation and competitors use it the right way.

“So yeah, I’m fired up and hopefully I can show it and still put up a decent season.”

Decent by Dirk’s standards means dominant. That’s the Nowitzki the Mavs need to have any hope of accomplishing their mission of making playoff noise again.

PODCAST
Dallas Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle joins Fitzsimmons and Durrett at Mavericks media day to discuss his expectations for the upcoming season. Listen

Regular-season single-game tickets for the Dallas Mavericks will go on sale Saturday at 10 a.m., the team announced.

Tickets will be available at the American Airlines Center Box Office, online at mavs.com, via phone by calling 214.747.MAVS, and at all Ticketmaster outlets.

There is a four ticket limit for all game purchases until noon, and tickets are sold on a first-come, first-served basis.

The Mavs open the 2013-14 season at home Wednesday, October 30 vs. the Atlanta Hawks at 7:30 p.m.

Former New York Knicks first-round pick Renaldo Balkman has reached an agreement on a nonguaranteed deal with the Dallas Mavericks, a source said.

Balkman, 29, a defensive-minded 6-foot-8 small forward, has been out of the NBA since 2011-12. He has since played in the Philippines, Venezuela and Puerto Rico.

Balkman averaged 25 points and 13.4 rebounds for the Petron Blaze Boosters in in the Philippine Basketball Association, but he was banned for the rest of the season in March after initiating contact with an official, shoving a coach and teammates and grabbing a teammate by the neck while irate about a no-call. Balkman later publicly apologized for the incident.

Balkman, the 20th overall pick in the 2006 draft, has career NBA averages of 4.0 points and 3.5 rebounds in 13.9 minutes, appearing in 221 games for the Knicks and Denver Nuggets.

The addition of Balkman gives the Mavs a 20-man roster for training camp, which begins Tuesday. That includes 15 players with guaranteed contracts.

You thought Americans didn't give Dirk Nowitzki his due?

It took Nowitzki carrying the Mavericks to the 2011 title, earning the Finals MVP award in the process, for him to be recognized as one of the all-time great players in NBA history. He shattered the soft Euro stereotype with clutch moment after clutch moment during the Mavs' magical championship run.

Now, Americans give Nowitzki the kind of respect fit for a man who has earned 11 All-Star invitations, an MVP and a Finals MVP. In our part of the world, he's considered unquestionably the best European basketball product ever, as well as one of the elite power forwards of all-time.

Apparently, Europeans aren't quite as enamored with Nowitzki. A HoopsHype.com survey of 38 Eurobasket players ranked Nowitzki as fifth among the all-time best Euro ballers.

The four ranked ahead of Nowitzki: Drazen Petrovic, Tony Parker, Arvydas Sabonis and Dejan Bodiroga.

Bodiroga, a Serbian, never played in the NBA. Petrovic, Parker and Sabonis have a combined 25,007 NBA points -- 44 fewer than Nowitzki.

Clearly, the players based their votes primarily on accomplishments in international ball. Nowitzki dragging Germany to the 2008 Olympics apparently wasn't that impressive.

The Mavericks signed forward Devin Ebanks to a non-guaranteed deal, essentially inviting him to training camp.

The 6-foot-9 Ebanks played three seasons for the Los Angeles Lakers after being selected with the 43rd overall pick in the 2010 draft. He has career averages of 3.6 points and 1.9 rebounds in 63 games.

The addition of Ebanks gives the Mavs 19 players under contract, including 15 with guaranteed deals.

In addition to center Fab Melo, swingman D.J. Kennedy and guard Mickey McConnell signed contracts to come to training camp with the Dallas Mavericks.

The 6-foot-6, 215-pound Kennedy helped new Mavs general manager Gersson Rosas' Rio Grande Valley Vipers win the D-League championship last season, averaging 21.3 points, 9.3 rebounds and 6.3 assists per game during the playoffs. Kennedy, 23, was a D-League all-star who averaged 16.6 points, 7.7 rebounds and 5.1 assists. The St. John's product appeared in two games for the Cleveland Cavaliers during the 2011-12 season.

McConnell (6-0, 189) averaged 13.6 points, 3.5 rebounds and 2.7 assists in 32 games for Tenevis VE in the Italian league last season. He played his college ball at Saint Mary's from 2007 to 2011, earning West Coast Conference player of the year honors as a senior.

The Mavs now have 18 players under contract, including 15 with guaranteed deals.

The Dallas Mavericks' ongoing search for a bargain big man has led them to invite the recently released Fab Melo to training camp, according to sources close to the situation.

Sources told ESPN.com on Tuesday that the Mavericks have struck a training camp deal with Melo, who was traded from Boston to Memphis after his rookie season with the Celtics and then waived by the Grizzlies in August, two weeks after they acquired him.

The Mavericks spent much of July chasing Greg Oden as a minimum-salary backup to new starting center Samuel Dalembert, but Oden opted to sign with the two-time champs from Miami instead. Yet the sudden availability of Melo gave Dallas an opportunity to roll the dice on the No. 22 overall pick from the 2012 draft, who wound up spending much of his rookie season in the D-League.

(Click here to read the full story.)

In the Olympic summer of 2016, Dirk Nowitzki will be 38 years old.

But Nowitzki says he'll indeed consider a return to international basketball that summer if he thinks his return to the German national squad can clinch a spot for his homeland in the 2016 Olympics in Brazil.

"If I'm still healthy enough and we have a chance to qualify, then I'd consider it," Nowitzki told ESPN.com late Monday.

Nowitzki was responding to statements made earlier Monday by Germany coach Frank Menz, who told ESPN.com's Mark Woods after Germany's elimination from the EuroBasket tournament in Slovenia that the face of the Dallas Mavericks has left open the possibility of a national-team return if the squad continues to progress.

Germany failed to advance past the group stage of this month's EuroBasket but turned heads with an upset of heavily favored France in its Group A opener. The Germans also prevented Israel from advancing out of the group with a narrow win in Monday's Group A finale despite playing without Nowitzki, NBA veteran center Chris Kaman and Atlanta Hawks rookie guard Dennis Schroeder.

Nowitzki, to this day, regards qualification for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing -- with Kaman's assistance -- as an achievement on par with the NBA championship he won in Dallas in 2011. It's Menz's belief that adding the likes of Nowitzki and Schroeder to the promising cast of unheralded shooters Germany has assembled would put the Germans back in Olympic contention.

(Click here to read the full story.)

ARLINGTON, Texas – Jerry Jones showed a lot of love for LeBron James, inviting the NBA MVP to be his guest at the Cowboys’ season opener Sunday night, when James roamed the field during pregame warmups and watched the win over the Giants from a luxury suite.

Cowboys fans, on the other hand, didn’t exactly give King James a warm welcome.

The AT&T Stadium sellout crowd, which obviously included a lot of Mavericks fans, booed when James was shown on the massive video boards during a timeout in the second half. James playfully took off his Cowboys cap and pointed to it in a I-come-in-peace kind of gesture, but that didn’t do much to quiet the boos.

Apparently the 2011 Finals – and the mocking of a sick Dirk Nowitzki by James and Dwyane Wade – are still fresh on folks’ minds in the Metroplex.

The boos didn’t seem to spoil the night for James. His Cowboys won, and he celebrated the victory by running pass routes with his friends on the field after midnight.

James, a former high school football star, posted a picture on Instagram of him dunking over the crossbar.

Would definitely be my 1st TD celebration! #DreamChasing #LetsFly http://t.co/OiuAzpn4Mx

— LeBron James (@KingJames) September 9, 2013

 

The thought of James’ NFL potential has certainly crossed the Cowboys’ mind. Dez Bryant said this summer he thought James could be “a beast” in the NFL with a couple of weeks to prepare. On his KRLD-FM radio show Friday, Jones joked that he wished he could get James suited up to play tight end.

Maybe that’s the only way James could win over fans around here. Heck, these folks cheered for Terrell Owens when he wore a star on his helmet.

The NBA is about competition on the floor, but it’s also about dollars and cents. Teams now must find players who can outperform deals they’re signed to and use them as assets on the floor or as assets to flip in order to acquire a game-changing piece. ESPNDallas.com will grade how the Dallas Mavericks fared in terms of contracts of their new acquisitions.

Brandan Wright: Re-signed to a two-year, $10 million contract. Wright will be paid $5 million in 2013-14.

The deal for Wright proved to be extremely economical for the Mavs. After a strong performance in the final 24 games of the season for the Mavs (11.3 points, 5.5 rebounds, 1.7 blocks and .578 percent shooting from the field), Wright emerged as a prime target to get a healthy contract in free agency.

While he was flirting with other teams, he proved to be committed to staying with the Mavs. He was patient through the process as he knew the Mavs would be able to go over the cap to sign him with Early Bird rights. As the Mavs continued to get to the salary cap number, he easily could have signed with another team, but he stayed with the Mavs as they gave him a fresh start after the early portion of his career.

With job security and momentum from last season uniting, Wright has an opportunity to carve out a consistent role for himself as the first big man off the bench.

At 25, the versatile big man still has time to have his game develop and grow. The Mavs had Brandon Bass and Ian Mahinmi develop in their system only to see them depart. They decided Wright was too good to let go.

Grade: A+

The NBA is about competition on the floor, but it’s also about dollars and cents. Teams now must find players who can outperform deals they’re signed to and use them as assets on the floor or as assets to flip in order to acquire a game-changing piece. ESPNDallas.com will grade how the Dallas Mavericks fared in terms of contracts of their new acquisitions.

Gal Mekel: Signed to a three-year minimum contract that is fully guaranteed. Mekel will make $490,180 in 2013-14.

Similar to that of Ricky Ledo, the investment in the Israeli guard is low risk in the big picture. Speaking to him in Las Vegas during the summer league, Mekel wanted to land with a team that would give him a multi-year deal to provide security as he adjusted to the NBA. The Mavs were the team that ultimately stepped up and offered that to him.

While he is in a platoon now at the backup point guard position with Shane Larkin, Mekel is the more polished of the two. His court vision and passing ability make him a unique option off the bench. Bench players have flaws and his will be the learning curve he has to go through to develop as a shooter, along with his size.

Mekel was quite impressive in Vegas and his numbers would have been better with more NBA talent around him. While Larkin and Mekel see time with the Texas Legends as rookies, it’s not out of the realm of possibilities that the Israeli guard emerges as the better option between the two.

Grade: B