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ESPNDallas.com will estimate the market value for each of the Mavericks' eight free agents and examine their worth to the Mavs in a once-per-day series.

Brandan Wright

Brandan Wright would like to be back with the Mavericks.

The Mavs would like to keep Wright, a young, athletic center/forward who took advantage of his return to the rotation in the final month and a half, averaging 11.2 points, 5.7 rebounds and 1.7 blocks as a 24-minute-per-night part-time starter in the final 23 games. Wright was a major reason why the Mavs went 15-8 during that stretch and probably earned millions in the process.

“The truth is Brandan is a very unique player. He fits in with us. He fits in with our personnel,” coach Rick Carlisle said. “There’s some teams that he really plays great against. That’s been consistent for both years. There’s other teams where it’s tougher for him because of the physical strength, some of the bruising type teams. But we like him. He has continued to get better.

“We met with him (the day after the season ended) and told him that we definitely wanted him back here. These decisions are going to come down to the money and the market and so on and so forth, but he’s a guy that we like.”

It could be more complicated than just the money. Timing of negotiations with Wright could be tricky, too.

Wright feels a sense of loyalty to the franchise that picked him up off the scrap heap after the lockout, but he’s facing the first major business decision of his career. He understands, however, that he won’t be the Mavs’ top priority this summer.

What if Wright gets an offer he likes while the Mavs are pursuing Dwight Howard or Chris Paul or whoever their Plan C, D, E, etc. might be? Wright might not have the luxury of waiting to see whether the Mavs would be able or willing to match.

There is strong mutual interest in Wright returning to the Mavs. Now, it’s a matter of whether the business of basketball gets in the way.

2012-13 stats: Averaged 8.5 points, 4.1 rebounds and 1.2 blocks while shooting 59.7 percent from the floor in 18.0 minutes per game. His player efficiency rating (PER) of 21.03 ranked 20th in the league.

Age: 25

Comps:

Brandon Bass – Averaged 8.7 points, 5.2 rebounds and 0.8 blocks while shooting 48.6 percent from the floor in 27.6 minutes per game. Signed three-year, $19.4 million deal in 2012.

JaVale McGee – Averaged 9.1 points, 4.8 rebounds and 2.0 blocks while shooting 57.5 percent in 18.1 minutes per game. Signed four-year, $44 million deal in 2012.

Ed Davis – Averaged 7.7 points, 5.7 rebounds and 1.0 blocks while shooting 53.9 percent in 20.1 minutes per game. Has one season remaining on rookie contract.

Amir Johnson – Averaged 10.0 points, 7.5 rebounds and 1.4 blocks while shooting 55.4 percent from the floor in 28.7 minutes per game. Signed five-year, $30 million deal in 2010.

Estimated contract: Bass got $18 million over four years after his two-season stint with the Mavs. Ian Mahinmi, another two-year Mavs project, got $16 million over four years. The bidding for Wright figures to start in that range.

DALLAS -- Jason Kidd stole Ray Allen's pass into the paint midway through the quarter to give Kidd his 2,515th career steal, pushing him past Michael Jordan to become No. 2 on the NBA's all-time steals list.

The theft led to a Dirk Nowitzki jumper that was part of 10 consecutive points scored by the big German. He finished the half with 21 points and 10 rebounds.

Sounds like all fun and games, but as poorly as the massively undermanned Celtics are playing, Dallas might think it should be leading by more than 10. Boston, playing without starters Rajon Rondo and Kevin Garnett, plus reserve forward Brandon Bass, are shooting 40.5 percent. The Mavs aren't doing much better at 40.9 percent, which means no one besides Dirk is doing much on the offensive end.

OK, Jason Terry is 3-of-4 with two 3s for eight points.

But, to the point, Dirk is 8-of-18 from the floor and the rest of the team is 10-of-26 for 23 points.

Paul Pierce leads Boston with 11 points. Allen and Texas-ex Avery Bradley have eight points each.

Standing in the quiet Dallas Mavericks locker room Sunday at Madison Square Garden, Shawn Marion, tugging on his designer jeans after a long day chasing Jeremy Lin, was reminded that in about 24 hours he'd be at the American Airlines Center warming up for tonight's game against the Boston Celtics.

"Whew," was about all Marion could muster with a shake of the head and a quick rise of the eyebrows.

After weeks of playing four, five and six games a week, to say the Mavs are looking forward to the All-Star break come Thursday is a vast understatement. Only Dirk Nowitzki will be headed to All-Star Weekend in Orlando as a participant, a reserve for the 11th consecutive time for the West squad. Jason Terry will be there doing work with Reebok.

Otherwise, this squad, the oldest in the league, will take a break on Thursday and won't return until Monday. They won't play again until Tuesday when a point guard named Deron Williams comes to town with Avery Johnson and the woebegone New Jersey Nets.

But, first there's a little business to take care of against the Celtics tonight and Kobe Bryant and those Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday.

"That's how we like it, we like it tough," Terry said. "These are the type of games you love -- New York, Boston, L.A. What more can you ask for?"

Tonight: vs. Boston Celtics (15-15), 7 p.m.
TV/Radio: TNT/ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM; 1270 AM (Spanish)
What to watch: The Celtics enter this one in desperation mode as losers of three in a row. They fell to .500 Sunday and 4-7 on the road with a 96-81 wipeout at the hands of the suddenly hot Detroit Pistons. The Celtics could be rather shorthanded as well with former Mavs forward Brandon Bass nursing a sore left knee, Kevin Garnett's status uncertain due to personal reasons and point guard Rajon Rondo awaiting word from the league on a possible suspension after being ejected against the Pistons. The Mavs will be looking to close out their nine-game run with bounce-back game after falling to the Knicks Sunday afternoon. They beat the Celtics in Boston, 90-85.

Wednesday: vs. Los Angeles Lakers (18-13), 8:30 p.m.
TV/Radio: ESPN, FSSW/ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM; 1270 AM (Spanish)
What to watch: The Lakers don't win much on the road, just five times in 16 games, including a 102-90 spanking at Phoenix on Sunday. L.A. will play Portland on Monday before traveling east for a back-to-back at Dallas and Oklahoma City. Last month, Dallas lost a tough, ugly one in L.A. on a Derek Fisher 3-pointer in the final seconds for a 73-70 win. Maybe Dallas can take advantage of a fatigued team. Where the Mavs have concentrated on keeping their stars' minutes, down, Kobe, Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum rank near the top of the league in minutes played. Kobe is averaging more than 38 minutes and Gasol is at 37. A victory over the Lakers would send the Mavs into the All-Star break having to feel pretty good about the first half of the season and looking forward to a second half that becomes road-heavy entering March.

Before this season started, Dirk Nowitzki said the part of his game he's most proud of at this stage of his career is his late-game prowess. He said in the early days Steve Nash or Michael Finley, and then even Nick Van Exel, took the big shots with the game on the line.

These days there's arguably no one better in the league producing in the clutch than Nowitzki. He made that perfectly clear in the NBA Finals -- Chris Bosh and Udonis Haslem will attest to that, and Mavs coach Rick Carlisle continues to put the ball in his big man's hands when the game is on the line.

Nowitzki continued his game-winning dominance with Wednesday's drive-and-finish despite getting dropped to the floor by Celtics forwards Brandon Bass and Kevin Garnett. The three-point play gave Dallas an 88-85 lead with 5.1 seconds to play. Nowitzki scored nine of his 16 points in the fourth quarter, another fourth that showed how much the Mavs depend one of the game's most difficult covers to take over in the final frame.

"It’s a fun situation to be in," said Nowitzki, who needs three points to reach 23,000 for his career. "Everybody’s looking at you and your team really depends on you so I like to be in the position where I can make something happen. It doesn’t always have to be a shot, but just to make a play for my teammates and it's been going pretty good."

These numbers from ESPN Stats & Info highlight the Mavs' reliance on Nowitzki's fourth-quarter production:

Nowitzki took over for the Mavericks in the fourth quarter by going to his isolation game. Nowitzki scored nine of the Mavericks’ 22 fourth-quarter points, five of which came on isolation sets. This season, the Mavericks have run isolation plays for Nowitzki more than twice as often in the fourth quarter compared to the first three. Among the 50 players who have at least 20 isolation plays this season, Nowitzki ranks third in field-goal percentage (52.6).

How it happened: After struggling most of the night, Dirk Nowitzki delivered when it mattered most.

The Dallas Mavericks had allowed a 13-point second-half lead to melt away when Nowitzki got the ball with about 10 seconds to go at the 3-point line, just right of the top of the arc. After facing up against Kevin Garnett's physical defense, Nowitzki drove hard to his right and went right to the rack, making an and-1 layup despite being knocked down by Brandon Bass and Garnett.

He made the free throw, giving the Mavs a three-point lead and Nowitzki 16 points on the night.

That, along with some stingy defense in the final seconds, prevented the Boston Celtics from pulling off a comeback.

If coach Rick Carlisle meant to spark the Mavs with his rant at the referees, his plan worked well.

Carlisle marched all the way in front of the Celtics’ bench to protest Garnett’s physical defense on Nowitzki, promptly drawing a pair of technical fouls to earn an early exit. That occurred early in the third quarter, when the Celtics had seized momentum and the lead.

The Mavs responded with a 24-6 run to build a lead that swelled to as large as 13 points. The Celtics battled back to pull even a few times in the fourth quarter, but the Mavs never trailed again, pulling out a pretty ugly win in the final minute.

What it means: The Mavs left Dallas without a road win this season and return home with a couple after back-to-back victories at Detroit and Boston. This could be the beginning of the Mavs, who had the NBA’s best road record the last two seasons, re-establishing themselves as a beast away from the AAC. It also pushed the defending NBA champions above .500 (6-5) for the first time this season.

Play of the game: The Finals MVP had an and-1 game winner. What more do you want?

Stat of the night: The Mavs shot only 14-of-25 on free throws. Centers Brendan Haywood and Ian Mahinmi combined to go 2-of-10 during otherwise solid performances.

Ninth in a series chronicling the Dallas Mavericks' streak of 10 seasons with 50 or more wins (previous installments).

Avery Johnson was out, and owner Mark Cuban told reporters during the club's media day that a handful of players came to him and told him they wanted to play elsewhere if the head-strong Johnson was coming back.

Cuban wasted little time in hiring the quirky, yet successful Rick Carlisle, who had taken the Detroit Pistons and Indiana Pacers to the Eastern Conference finals in rather short order. Carlisle was the Mavs' lone candidate granted an interview.

Known more for a structured offensive philosophy and a strong defensive disposition, Carlisle came in with the directive to allow Jason Kidd, in his first full season back in Dallas, to do his thing. Yet, things didn't get off to a rousing start as the Mavs dropped seven of their first nine and seemed headed for an early internal showdown before Dirk Nowitzki had a huge fourth quarter and overtime for a come-from-behind win at New York to avoid a 2-8 start.

Dallas would become the first team in the NBA to start 2-7 and go on to post 50 wins. But, make no mistake, it was a struggle. The Mavs never won more than five in a row and that streak started with the early-season rally against the lowly Knicks.

Jerry Stackhouse played just 10 games due to a mixture of injury, overall conditioning and attitude. Josh Howard, coming off his dubious end to the 2007-08 season and the ensuing summer, played just 52 games due to a wrist injury, but mostly a sprained ankle that wouldn't go away.

Nowitzki put up MVP-type numbers for a team that had to have him go for big numbers every night just to have a chance to win. When Howard didn't play, which was often, the Mavs were the only team in the NBA that featured just two players averaging double-digit scoring. Even with Howard in the lineup, the Mavs never knew when a fourth scorer might emerge.

Still, the Mavs managed to snap a two-year skid of first-round defeats, dusting off a beat-up San Antonio team that was without Manu Ginobili. But, Dallas was no match for the Denver Nuggets in the second round, losing 4-1.

Coach: Rick Carlisle
Record: 50-32 (3rd, Southwest)
Playoffs: Defeated San Antonio (4-1); lost to Denver (4-1)
Team payroll: $95.05 million*
Highest-paid player: Jason Kidd ($21.4 million)*

Offseason transactions: Signed C DeSagana Diop (free agent); signed G Gerald Green (free agent); signed F James Singleton; traded G/F Eddie Jones, a 2009 second-round draft pick (A.J. Price) and a future 2nd round draft pick to Indiana for F Shawne Williams.

In-season transaction: Jan. 16, 2009: Traded C DeSagana Diop to Charlotte for C Ryan Hollins and G Matt Carroll.

The high: With Jerry Stackhouse out of the picture early on, Jason Terry gladly accepted the sixth-man role and thrived, averaging 19.6 points, his best as a Maverick. It earned him the league's Sixth Man of the Year award. Terry and Dirk Nowitzki made up the third-highest scoring duo in the NBA at 45.5 points.

The low: It's doubtful it would have changed the outcome of the second-round series against Denver, but the non-call as Antoine Wright tried to wrap up -- but more like flailed at -- Carmelo Anthony, who then buried a 3-pointer at the end of Game 3, goes down as another one of those "what-if" playoff moments for the Mavs. In the offseason, rather than use their mid-level exception to try to sign a much-needed scorer, the Mavs overpaid to bring back DeSagana Diop. His production was so poor that the Mavs traded him midseason to Charlotte for center Ryan Hollins and guard Matt Carroll. Hollins is no longer on the team and Carroll never plays. The Jerry Stackhouse situation was unfortunate. One of the team's prouder players and a key cog in getting the franchise to its first NBA Finals had a foot issue, but as the season wore on either Stackhouse or the organization decided to shut him down. The facts there are still fuzzy, but Stackhouse's days as a Mav were over.

The roster:
F Dirk Nowitzki (25.9 ppg, 8.4 rpg)
G Jason Terry (19.6 ppg, 3.4 apg)
F/G Josh Howard (18.0 ppg, 5.1 rpg in 52 games)
G Jason Kidd (9.0 ppg, 8.7 apg)
F Brandon Bass (8.5 ppg, 4.5 rpg)
G J.J. Barea (7.8 ppg, 3.4 apg, 20.3 mpg)
G Antoine Wright (7.3 ppg, 23.9 mpg)
C Erick Dampier (5.7 ppg, 7.1 rpg)
F/G Gerald Green (5.7 ppg in 38 games)
F James Singleton (5.1 ppg, 4.0 rpg)
G/F Jerry Stackhouse (played in 10 games)
G/F Devean George (3.4 ppg, in 43 games)
C Ryan Hollins (2.9 ppg, 2.3 rpg in 27 games)
G Matt Carroll (1.2 ppg in 21 games)
F Shawne Williams (played in 15 games)
C DeSagana Diop (1.6 ppg, 3.4 rpg in 34 games)

*Source: Basketball-Reference.com

Eighth in a series chronicling the Dallas Mavericks' streak of 10 seasons with 50 or more wins (previous installments).

Where to start with this strange season? In the rearview mirror was the double-doozy hammer of the 2006 Finals flop and the 2007 first-round failure. The Dallas Mavericks were considered mentally shot. How could the same core players regroup after consecutive unfathomable, gut-wrenching heartbreaks?

The first order of business was to promote slashing point guard Devin Harris as the full-time starter. Here's what coach Avery Johnson said about Harris before the season:

"The experiment with me trying to make him Jason Kidd, that's not his game. We have an idea now exactly who he is and I think we can maximize him being a certain type of point guard. He has a chance to be in that mold of a [Tony] Parker or even a Kevin Johnson."

Before Harris sprained his ankle on Jan. 27, 2008, he was averaging 14.4 points and 5.4 assists. The Mavs were 30-13 and in contention for the top spot in the West with the All-Star break a couple of weeks away. Yet, there was an undercurrent brewing that management, Johnson and Dirk Nowitzki were unhappy with Harris' ability to create for teammates. That game would be the last one of Harris' career in Dallas.

With multiple bizarre twists ahead, the season started to slowly slip away. The Mavs shipped Harris to New Jersey for veteran Jason Kidd in a multi-player trade that Johnson and the Mavs billed as finally giving the team a true quarterback. Even that proved to be a strange and prolonged process as Devean George blocked the original deal by utilizing a little-known clause in his contract. Jerry Stackhouse then raised eyebrows around the league when he prematurely talked about being part of the deal, then how he would get waived and then re-sign with Dallas after a 30-day vacation. In the end, neither player was included in the trade.

Oddly, in Kidd's fifth game with the Mavs, Johnson benched his quarterback in the final 30 seconds of a heated game at San Antonio. The Mavs failed to score on their final possession and the Spurs won the game. With Kidd, Dallas finished the regular season 16-13 and dropped to the No. 7 seed. Before the playoffs started, Josh Howard, who was having a career season, averaging 19.9 points and 7.0 rebounds, began one of the weirdest meltdowns in team history.

Howard went on local radio to announce his offseason marijuana use. During the first-round series against New Orleans, he defied Johnson's plea not to party during the playoffs and passed out fliers to teammates advertising his late-night birthday bash. It was the beginning of a long, injury-filled end for Howard in Dallas. During the New Orleans series, Stackhouse went on local radio and for some reason blasted then-Hornets coach Byron Scott. Stackhouse had an awful playoff series, which proved to be the beginning of the end for him as a productive player in Dallas.

It was also the beginning of the end of Johnson's rapid tenure that achieved more incredible regular-season highs and unthinkable postseason lows than can fill most careers. In disarray throughout the 4-1 first-round loss to New Orleans, Johnson's teams went 3-12 in playoff games after leading Miami, 2-0, in the 2006 NBA Finals.

Johnson would never get a chance to improve that record.

Coach: Avery Johnson
Record: 51-31 (4th, Southwest Division)
Playoffs: Lost to New Orleans (4-1)
Team payroll: $101.7 million
Highest-paid player: Jason Kidd ($19.7 million)*; Michael Finley ($18.59 million**)

Offseason transactions: Drafted Nick Fazekas (2nd round, 34th pick); Signed F Brandon Bass (free agent); Signed G/F Eddie Jones (free agent); traded G Greg Buckner to Minnesota for G/F Trenton Hassell.

In-season transaction: Nov. 1, 2007: Signed F Juwan Howard (free agent); Feb. 19, 2008: Traded Devin Harris, DeSagana Diop, Trenton Hassell, Maurice Ager, Keith Van Horn (retired), a 2008 first-round draft and a 2010 first-round draft pick (and waived Nick Fazekas) to New Jersey for Jason Kidd, Antoine Wright and Malik Allen; Feb. 26, 2008: Signed C Jamaal Magliore (free agent); March 4, 2008: Signed G Tyronn Lue (free agent).

The high: The Mavs became just the fourth franchise in NBA history to win at least 50 games in eight consecutive seasons. In the 743rd game of his career, Dirk Nowitzki became the Mavs' career scoring leader (16,644). His 15-foot jumper in the final minutes of a 111-91 win over New Jersey moved Nowitzki past Rolando Blackman. It gave Nowitzki the franchise records in points, rebounds, 3-point field goals and free throws.

The low: Even though Avery Johnson, by all appearances, was behind the trade for Jason Kidd, it seemed the two never meshed. Johnson's need for control vs. Kidd's need to freelance was like oil and water. If the theory was that Mark Cuban traded for Kidd to try to save Johnson's job, that plan backfired horribly. Johnson, it became all the more apparent, was losing his team as the season wound down. The final straw for him was Howard's birthday bash. Johnson was so outraged by it that he canceled practice the day before Game 5, only at the time no one was certain why he had called off the workout on the eve of an elimination game. Cuban wasted no time after the Game 5 debacle in New Orleans and fired Johnson on the plane trip back after just three full seasons and with three years remaining on his lucrative contract.

The roster:
F Dirk Nowitzki (23.6 ppg, 8.6 rpg)
F Josh Howard (19.9 ppg, 7.9 rpg)
G Jason Terry (15.5 ppg, 37.5% 3FG)
G Devin Harris (14.4 ppg, 5.3 apg in 39 games)
G Jason Kidd (9.9 ppg, 9.5 apg in 29 games)
G/F Jerry Stackhouse (10.7 ppg, 40.5% FG)
F Brandon Bass (8.3 ppg, 4.4 rpg, 19.7 mpg)
G Antoine Wright (3.5 ppg, 11.7 mpg in 15 games)
C Erick Dampier (6.1 ppg, 7.5 rpg)
G Tyronn Lue (3.8 ppg in 17 games)
F Malik Allen (3.1 ppg, 0.6 rpg in 25 games)
G J.J. Barea (4.3 ppg, 1.3 apg in 44 games)
G/F Eddie Jones (3.7 ppg, 29.3% 3FG)
G/F Devean George (3.7 ppg, 32.4% 3FG)
C DeSagana Diop (3.0 ppg, 5.2 rpg in 52 games)
G/F Trenton Hassell (2.1 ppg in 37 games)
C Jamaal Magliore (played in six games)
G Maurice Ager (played in 12 games)
F Juwan Howard (1.1 ppg, 1.6 rpg in 50 games)
F Nick Fazekas (played in four games)

*Source: Basketball-Reference.com

**The Mavericks waived Michael Finley on Aug. 15, 2005, taking advantage of a one-time amnesty provision that allowed them to avoid luxury taxes on the $51.8 million owed him over the next three years. Finley became an unrestricted free agent and joined the San Antonio Spurs, although the Mavs remained on the hook to pay his full salary.

Brandon Bass welcomed himself back to Dallas by carrying the Orlando Magic to a win in the preseason opener.

The ex-Maverick scored seven points during a 10-0 run in the final few minutes that gave the Magic the lead for good. Bass finished with 13 points on 4-of-7 shooting in the Mavericks' 110-105 loss, doing the bulk of his damage once the stars sat on the bench.

Bass was a nice find for the Mavs as a street free agent, providing scoring punch off the pine while making a minimum salary the last two seasons. But the Magic's offer of $18 million over four years was far too rich for Mavs owner Mark Cuban, who didn't see Bass as anything more than a decent reserve in Dallas.