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ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM's Ben and Skin use their unique delivery to explain why the Mavs need to bring Deron Williams back to Big D.

Jeremy Schaap examines the growing trend of NBA owners speaking out about on-court actions.

Despite a down year by his Hall of Fame standards, Dirk Nowitzki got a little love in the MVP voting.

Nowitzki got one fourth-place and one fifth-place vote to finish tied with Russell Westbrook for 12th in the voting, far behind LeBron James, who was named MVP for the third time in four seasons. Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, Kobe Bryant, Tony Parker, Kevin Love, Dwight Howard, Rajon Rondo, Steve Nash, Derrick Rose and Dwyane Wade also finished above Nowitzki.

It’s the lowest Nowitzki has finished in the voting in a decade. He won the MVP in 2007, finished third in 2005 and 2006, sixth in 2011, seventh in 2003 and 2010, eighth in 2002, 10th in 2004 and 2009 and 11th in 2008.

Nowitzki, the reigning Finals MVP, averaged his fewest points (21.6) and rebounds (6.8) since 1999-00.

This is how Shawn Marion said he would implore free-agent-to-be point guard Deron Williams to sign this summer with his hometown Dallas Mavericks:

PODCAST
(May 2010) -- Dallas product, Jazz guard C.J. Miles joins GAC to chat about what the players think of Dirk and if he'd ever consider coming to play for his hometown Mavs. Listen

"Get your a-- home. Home is where the heart is."

In less than two months we'll find out which way Williams' heart tugs.

There's also another local lad, a free-agent-to-be who has all along thought the idea of playing pro ball in his backyard would be pretty cool. In less than two months we'll find out how interested the Mavs are in bringing home C.J. Miles.

Drafted in 2005 by the Utah Jazz, the Skyline High School product has remained with the Jazz for his entire seven-year career, averaging 8.4 points in 19.3 minutes a game. At just 25 years old, Miles becomes an unrestricted free agent July 1 for the first time in his career. Of course, Miles and Williams were former teammates in Utah.

During a May 2010 guest appearance on ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM's "Galloway & Company," the 6-foot-6 shooting guard made it clear he'd like to play at home. Here's a snippet of how that conversation went:

"I definitely would want to do that at one point in my career. Just to have that feeling. That hometown feeling of having my friends and family behind me to see me play and see how I've grown. I definitely have that feeling sometimes."

As for what it would take to make it happen?

"I don't know. I guess I'd have to be free and, if they were interested, I'd definitely take it into high consideration."

With Jason Terry hitting free agency, will the Mavs be in the market for a young, athletic shooting guard? Miles, who earned $3.7 million this season, isn't exactly a sharpshooter, hitting for 38.1 percent overall this season and 30.7 percent from beyond the arc. His career numbers are just a few notches better at 41.9 percent and 32.9 percent, respectively.

Miles recently told the Deseret News that he is looking forward to exploring his options and that being reunited with Williams is an intriguing possibility.

"If that was an issue that came up I definitely would look at it. Who wouldn't, especially with the way that team is built now," Miles said. "They're aging a little bit and I'm pretty sure they're going to be looking for some guys that do some of the things I do."

Would the Mavs be interested? So much depends on if Williams signs, which players remain on the roster after any trades to create additional cap space and how much money the Mavs then have to fill out the roster. Rodrigue Beaubois and Dominique Jones both have a year left on their deals and Vince Carter will probably be returning. Delonte West joins Terry in free agency.

The Mavs shipped off athletic small forward Corey Brewer before last season, but there's no doubt they want an infusion of youth and athleticism in their backcourt.

Now it's all about how the dominoes fall.

The Mavs’ front office doesn’t believe that Tyson Chandler would have made that much of a difference in Dallas this season.

So it’s safe to assume that Mark Cuban and Donnie Nelson aren’t kicking themselves for letting Corey Brewer go for essentially nothing.

Still … it was impossible to watch the skinny swingman light up the Lakers last night and not think that the Mavs could use that kind of youth, athleticism and energy on their roster.

Brewer’s shining moment during his brief time with the Mavericks was sparking a comeback from a 16-point deficit at the Staples Center in Game 1 of the West semifinals sweep of the Lakers. He was even better in Thursday’s Game 6, scoring 18 points on 8-of-12 shooting while playing his typical tenacious defense during 19 minutes in the Nuggets’ series-tying win.

Dallas shipped Brewer to Denver along with Rudy Fernandez, who never reported to the Mavericks, in December, getting a 2016 second-round pick in return. It was a classic salary dump after the Mavs deemed the young wings expendable after signing Vince Carter and trading for Lamar Odom.

The Mavs rid themselves of a malcontent in Fernandez. They got rid of a good guy in Brewer.

But dumping Brewer was all about the money. He had a $3,059,000 salary this season, which would have been doubled for Cuban due to the luxury tax. Brewer is due $3,243,000 next season -- not a bad price at all for a rotation player, but a ton to pay a benchwarmer.

The Mavs believed Brewer would have been a benchwarmer in Dallas. The Nuggets found a niche for him, and he’s earning his money in the playoffs again.

Mike Hill and Jalen Rose discuss whether Rick Carlisle will get a contract extension and coach the Mavericks next season.

ESPN Insider Chris Sprow discusses if the Dallas Mavericks are the favorite to land Deron Williams.

It comes as no surprise, but the NBA decided to finally make it official Thursday, naming Oklahoma City guard James Harden as Sixth Man of the Year by a landslide.

The Dallas Mavericks have no objections, and that likely includes Jason Terry, who finished third in the voting.

The last game Harden played, he schooled the Mavs with one drive to the rim after another, scoring 15 of his game-high 29 points in the fourth quarter of the Game 4 clincher.

Harden, the third overall pick in the 2009 draft out of Arizona State, led all NBA reserves in scoring (16.8 points per game) in helping Oklahoma City finish with the NBA’s third-best record (47-19). The Thunder await the winner of the Denver Nuggets-Los Angeles Lakers series in the West semifinals.

Harden received 584 of a possible 595 points, including 115 of a possible 119 first-place votes, from a panel of sportswriters and broadcasters throughout the United States and Canada. Lou Williams, who led the Philadelphia 76ers in scoring (14.9 ppg) despite not starting a single game, finished second with 231 points. Terry was a distant third with 81 points (20 second-place votes, 21 third-place votes).

Terry averaged 15.1 points per game during the season, shooting 43 percent overall and 37.8 percent from beyond the arc. His scoring average dipped to 13.8 in the first-round playoff loss. Terry, 34, now heads into free agency after eight seasons in Dallas.

Denver's Al Harrington finished fourth, and San Antonio's Manu Ginobili was fifth.

ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM's Ben Rogers and Skin Wade wrap up the 2011-12 season, break down the Mavericks pursuit of Deron Williams and discuss whether Dirk Nowitzki is too old to carry the team in the season finale of Mavs Pick & Roll.

Eras have a definitive starting point and a definitive ending point.

Clearly this current Dallas Mavericks' era could have a few starting points: The hiring of Don Nelson in 1997, the draft-day trade for Dirk Nowitzki in 1998 or the sale of the franchise to Mark Cuban in 2000. For the sake of this argument, we're going to suggest that the official start was the 2000-01 season, the launch of a decade-plus string of 50-win seasons and the first venture back into the postseason since the 1990s blackout.

And so may we now suggest that the current Mavs era -- with the first-round sweep at the hands of the Western Conference's baby superstars in Oklahoma City and an expected roster overhaul that could turn over everyone not named Dirk Nowitzki -- represents the end of a 12-season era. That era included three coaches guiding vastly different rosters -- with Nowitzki as the only constant -- to at least the West finals.

In those 12 seasons, the Mavs hit phenomenal milestones and set the standard for teams to come:

* The franchise's first championship in 2011

* Two NBA Finals appearances (2006 and 2011)

* Three West finals appearances (2003, '06, '11)

* 12 consecutive postseason appearances

* Franchise-best 67 wins in 2006-07

* 11 consecutive 50-win seasons (or the equivalent of a .600 winning percentage) all with Nowitzki, and the last eight with Jason Terry.

That last feat is also the signal of the end of this era. This season's team with its hastily fashioned roster finished 36-30 (.545), the first time since the the 1999-2000 season (40-42) that it did not reach at least a .600 winning percentage. It meant a struggle just to secure a playoff berth, finishing with the No. 7 seed and the same record as the No. 8 seed Utah Jazz, and just two games ahead of the lottery-bound Houston Rockets.

PODCAST
Do the Mavs owe Dirk anything? If the Mavs don't land a big fish this summer would they trade Dirk so he doesn't finish his career like Steve Nash? Ben and Skin weigh in. Listen

"When you’re used to going a little farther and doing a little better, everything becomes a priority," Mavs president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson said. "The priority is for us to be healthy in the here and now, and also in the long-term, and to never go back to those 10 years of the Bataan Death March walks in the desert of no playoffs. That’s the plan."

Welcome to the new era.

The question ahead is whether the second decade of Cuban-style Mavs basketball will begin in earnest next season with local lad Deron Williams as Nowitzki's sidekick until the big man decides to step aside, or if next season only becomes something of a stopgap before regrouping in the summer of 2013 with a new plan to keep the successes coming.

At the moment, we can't even be sure if coach Rick Carlisle will make Dallas the longest coaching stop of his 10-year career. Carlisle appears headed toward free agency, having yet to strike a deal with Cuban for a fifth season and beyond. At times Carlisle has, strategically or not, talked about coaching the Mavs in the past tense. Other times he seems ready to embrace the uncertain future.

"I look at this summer for this franchise as a summer of opportunity and excitement," Carlisle said. "And I don’t think anybody should look at it any differently."

Surely the coaching situation will get resolved soon, seemingly with Carlisle signing a lucrative new deal to stay in Big D. Then all attention will shift to July 1 and the start of free agency, and whether the perennial All-Star point guard called D-Will will make 2012-13 the official launch party for the next era of Dallas Mavericks basketball.

You don't have to be a billionaire owner of a basketball team to know it would make perfect sense to take stab at signing injury-ravaged center Greg Oden this offseason.

The 7-foot free agent would come cheap and even after three microfracture surgeries on two knees in his four seasons since the Portland Trail Blazers made him the No. 1 pick ahead of Kevin Durant in the 2007 draft, Oden is only 24 years old.

The Blazers released Oden in March and he did not sign with another team, by his choice, according to a piece written by Mark Titus on Grantland.com . Titus, a former AAU and Ohio State teammate of Oden's, sat down with the former one-and-done Buckeyes star and reveals in the article that Oden plans to train in Columbus, Ohio, during the 2012-13 season with the hope of strengthening his legs to the point where he can resume his short-circuited career in the 2013-14 season.

The Mavericks could be in serious need of a center next season. Brendan Haywood remains under contract for three years, but even he knows that Dallas could amnesty him to create cap space if it can land Deron Williams in free agency. Backup center Ian Mahinmi is a free agent.

Oden would have been interesting player to bring in. However, it appears that will have to wait another year, just like a pursuit of Dwight Howard.

The Mavs' lack of performance from their centers while being swept away by the Thunder ranks among the biggest disappointments in the first round of the NBA playoffs.

When Mark Cuban and Donnie Nelson agreed to send $3 million to the Memphis Grizzlies to move into the first round and grab South Florida combo guard Dominique Jones in the 2010 draft, the move was greeted with excitement.

"We are excited to add Dominique to our organization," Mavs president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson said on that June night in 2010. "He is 6-4 with a 6-9 wingspan and can do a little of everything. He can score, he can rebound and his assist-to-turnover ratio is exceptional."

The only thing exceptional about Jones' first two seasons is his pine time. Clearly stuck behind a deep and veteran unit of guards the last two seasons, Jones has done little to set himself apart. That fact came ringing home in the four-game playoff sweep to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Not only did Jones not play, he didn't dress. The former first-round pick was passed up on the active roster by newcomer Kelenna Azubuike, who played a total of 18 minutes in three games at the end of the season. The former Golden State Warrior had not played in a game in two years before that because a knee injury that jeopardized his career. The Mavs signed him on March 23 with a team option for next summer.

Jones, 23, will be heading into the final year of his contract next season. In 2013-14, the Mavs hold a team option. Of course, it is possible that Jones gets swept up in an offseason trade to create additional cap space.

He saw some time in 33 games this season, up from 18 a year ago. Jones is a good penetrator, he hustles and can play both guard positions. But his biggest impediment is a tough one for a basketball player: He's got no outside shot. He again shot below 40 percent on the season, and to that fact, Jones was the last man on the practice floor with coach Rick Carlisle shooting jumpers during the Mavs' final practice prior to Game 4.

Still, it's hard to get past the fact that Carlisle didn't even dress him in the playoffs in favor of Azubuike.

It wouldn't seem to speak highly for Jones' future in Dallas.

DALLAS -- Remember the crazed inmate in "Escape from Alcatraz" who chopped off a finger in the workshop? He could lop off another and still count on that hand the current NBA head coaches with a championship ring -- or rings in one case -- appreciating in safety deposit boxes.

Gregg Popovich, Doc Rivers... and Rick Carlisle.

Among 30.

NBA teams simply don't let go of proven head coaches, especially not a year removed from molding a group of title-less veterans into unexpected champs. So why Carlisle is now Day 4 into the offseason without a deal in place to coach the Dallas Mavericks next season and beyond is perplexing, if not entirely nonsensical.

If this is Mark Cuban's stubbornness to stick to his business model of postseason, end-of-contract evaluation, well, that's fine, it's his team. But the season is over.

Cuban might have felt his hand was forced six years ago in showering big dough on the Little General when he signed off on a five-year extension following the 2006 Finals flop, a bizarre meltdown of a series for team, owner and former coach Avery Johnson alike.

The circumstances surrounding Johnson's extension were far different. Johnson was coming off his first full season as an NBA head coach and still had three years left on his deal. Carlisle entered his 10th season as a head coach with the '11 title -- the franchise's first -- in his hip pocket and one year left on his deal.

A slam-dunk extension, right? Obviously not.

Read the rest of the story here.

DALLAS -- Big changes are in store for Dirk Nowitzki both on and off the court. Of course, by now everybody knows that the big man is on his way to marital bliss after he proposed to longtime girlfriend Jessica Olsson in February. Not sure if the nuptials are shaping up for the summer, but it's great that the world's most unassuming superstar has found The One.

On the court, Nowitzki has always had the same life-long partner in German coach Holger Geschwinder, famous for his plaid button-down shirts and for some of the most unorthodox conditioning workout drills in the history of modern basketball. Well, Holger might re-tool some things this summer after Nowitzki, who turns 34 in June, went a few rounds with Father Time, as some call it, for the first time this season.

Knee swelling and stiffness robbed Nowitzki of his mobility and effectiveness over the first month of the season and led him to take an unprecedented eight-day hiatus from playing so he could work behind the scenes to strengthen the sore right knee and round his body into better condition. He was not a fan that such a scenario had to play out.

"It was something I haven’t gone through in the league so far, struggling physically for the first time in my career and dealing with some knee swelling for weeks, almost months," Nowitzki said. "Obviously what happened at the beginning this year is probably going to change my routine a little bit. I’m probably going to lift more this summer and try to keep my legs strong so we don’t all have to go through what I went through at the beginning of the season, because that was pretty ugly."

At one point early in the season, Nowitzki was shooting below 20 percent from 3-point range. His scoring averaged dipped below 17 points a game in early February, bottoming out soon after his four-game absence. One month later, he had raised his average by three points, but still far from Nowitzki's standard.

"I started getting more comfortable again, was doing some of the same stuff I did last year," Nowitzki said. "That’s not only shoot but also move and get to the foul line and stuff like that, where before the injury I couldn’t drive that much and was basically a spot-up shooter. If I’m still able to drive some and post some and mix my game up, I still think I’m able to do it a couple more years."

The knee issue and compressed 66-game schedule conspired to produce Nowitzki's lowest scoring average, 21.6 points a game, since his second season in 1999-2000. His 45.7 shooting percentage was the lowest since his rookie season.

Nowitzki said the return of normalcy to the start of training camp, a full preseason and a regimented 82-game regular season will help him get his groove back.

"We kind of know when to start, we know when to be in shape, we know we have four weeks to get going and get games under our belt [before the start of the regular season]. I should be fine. I’ve got two more years [on his contract] and I still think I can play some great basketball."

The big question now is who he'll play some great basketball with. Big changes are in store for Nowitzki's supporting cast as well.