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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.

The Mavericks will explore all potential avenues of improving the talent on their roster, but upgrading at point guard is the top priority.

While Darren Collison confidently declared Thursday that he believes he could start for any team in the league, the Dallas decision-makers clearly don’t share that opinion. After all, they opted to start Derek Fisher and Mike James over Collison in a season that president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson described as a “point guard odyssey.”

PODCAST
Donnie Nelson joins Chuck Cooperstein and Tim MacMahon to discuss the Mavericks' season and the importance of this summer. Listen

The Mavs might welcome Collison back as a backup, depending on the price. They’ll search this summer for a long-term starting solution at a spot that coach Rick Carlisle calls “the most important position in the league.”

“We’ve been spoiled with Jason Kidd and Stevie Nash before,” Nelson said during a Thursday appearance on ESPN Dallas 103.3’s Galloway and Company. “I think the quarterback position is just a really, really important one. I’d say that that’s up there.

“That’s no disrespect for anyone. Darren Collison did a terrific job with a tough situation, and we’d certainly be open to the conversation of him coming back, but (upgrading point guard) has got to be in my mind first and foremost.”

The pie-in-the-sky scenario: Sign Chris Paul. Of course, the odds of him ditching a talented, young Clippers team to come to Dallas to play with a mid-30s core are awfully slim. As Mark Cuban recently said, he’ll be rooting for teams with free agents the Mavs might target to lose early in the playoffs. Would Paul consider leaving the Clippers if they flame out in the first round?

PODCAST
Rick Carlisle joins Chuck Cooperstein and Tim MacMahon to discuss the Mavericks' disappointing season and what needs to happen for them to get back to the playoffs. Listen

Paul will be the perfect fit, but the Mavs must be prepared to find their point guard of the future somewhere else. They might be able to draft next season’s backup with the 13th overall pick, assuming they don’t get amazing lottery luck, but a team determined to drastically improve its basketball IQ isn’t going to hand the reins to a rookie to run the show for 30-plus minutes a night.

It’s time for the Mavs to find a proven veteran point guard to fill Kidd’s shoes.

“I don’t know exactly what style, but the guy’s going to have to be able to score,” Carlisle said on Galloway and Company. “The guy’s going to have to be able to come off screens and hit shots, because when you’re come off screens from Dirk, you’re going to be open because of the way guys play him.”

A quick look at some of the other potential long-term upgrades available in free agency:

Jose Calderon: The Mavs have been involved in trade discussions about Calderon, as recently as midseason, when he got dealt from Toronto to Detroit in the three-way Rudy Gay deal. Calderon, who turns 32 in September, is a pass-first point guard who is a very efficient offensive player. He has career averages of 7.2 assists and 1.7 turnovers per game and is an excellent shooter (.483 FG, .399 3s, .877 FT). His flaws: He doesn’t penetrate well and is a poor defender, especially against speedy point guards.

Monta Ellis: The 27-year-old is not really a point guard. He’s a scorer (career 19.4 ppg) who sometimes plays point guard. He’s dangerous off the dribble and trouble in transition, but Ellis jacks up a lot of long jumpers and doesn’t make very many. He attempted 328 3s this season despite hitting only 28.7 percent, the lowest of any player with at least 200 tries. The idea of Ellis running pick-and-pops with Dirk Nowitzki is intriguing, but can a guard who has never averaged more than six assists per game in a season be counted on to consistently deliver Dirk the ball in prime scoring situations? And Ellis doesn’t exactly have a great defensive rep, either, despite his high steals totals.

Jarrett Jack: Jack, who turns 30 in October, is coming off his best season, averaging 12.9 points and 5.6 assists as the sixth man for a playoff team with Golden State. He’s an excellent midrange shooter and very effective hitting floaters off the dribble. He has a low turnover rate, the kind of strength and toughness Carlisle wants in a point guard and hit a lot of clutch shots for the Warriors this season. But Jack is really a combo guard who has never averaged more than 6.3 assists per season and struggles defensively against quick point guards. Like Kidd, he’s actually better defending shooting guards.

Brandon Jennings: Can the former lottery pick flourish under Carlisle’s coaching? Would it be worth offering enough to the restricted free agent for Milwaukee not to match? The 23-year-old Jennings, who has butted heads with his Bucks coaches, is on the record saying he’d love to play with Dirk and for Cuban and Carlisle in Dallas. His shooting percentage might soar in that situation, but the fact that it’s 39.4 percent for his career is a red flag. So is his slender frame (6-foot-1, 169 pounds). Oh, and so is the fact the Bucks have occasionally benched him during crunch time down the stretch this season. But Jennings (17.5 ppg, 6.5 apg this season) has shown enough flashes of brilliance to at least make him intriguing.

Jeff Teague: He’s a restricted free agent on a playoff team that has a ton of cap space, so the Mavs would have to overpay to get Teague. The four-year veteran is a quality young point guard, averaging 14.6 points and 7.2 assists this season, but it’s difficult to envision the Mavs throwing a ton of money at him.

Mo Williams: The 30-year-old Williams is best suited as a scoring sixth man, not a starting point guard. He’s a good spot-up 3-point shooter and knocks down a lot of midrange jumpers off pick-and-rolls, but he’s never been more than an average driver or distributor. Plus, Williams has major durability issues, having missed at least a dozen games in seven of the last eight seasons, including 36 with the Jazz last season, when he averaged 12.9 points and 6.2 assists.

There are, of course, other ways for the Mavs to acquire point guards. Hey, maybe Cuban can come up with some kind of multi-team deal that lands Rajon Rondo in Dallas.

DALLAS – Dirk Nowitzki has made it clear that he can’t stomach the thought of finishing his career fighting just to make the playoffs.

That doesn’t mean he’s pondering ever putting on another NBA franchise’s uniform. He’s simply pointing out the importance of the front office making major roster upgrades this summer to give the Mavericks a chance to compete for championships again.

PODCAST
Rick Carlisle joins Chuck Cooperstein and Tim MacMahon to discuss the Mavericks' disappointing season and what needs to happen for them to get back to the playoffs. Listen

“Honestly, I can’t really see myself going anywhere else but here,” Nowitzki said at the beginning of his first playoff-free offseason since 2000. “Really, the pressure is on Mark (Cuban) and Donnie (Nelson) to get this franchise back to where it belongs, and they know that. Then we’re all good, everything’s fine.

“I mean, I belong to this city. That’s just the bottom line. I could never see myself playing for another franchise, putting another jersey on. That would be probably the hardest thing I’d have to do in my life. I want to stay here, but I also want to play at a high level with a good team that we can be proud of and represent this city and this franchise.”

Nowitzki, who intends to sign a two- or three-year deal when his current contract expires after next season, is willing to do anything he can to help the Mavs recruit free agents this summer.

Unlike most summers, he’ll be in Dallas instead of his native Germany the majority of the time. That’s largely because his wife, Jessica, is expecting the couple’s first child. However, Nowitzki said he planned to be in Dallas at the beginning of July for professional reasons anyway.

“It’s a big summer,” Nowitzki said. “I would have probably been here in July regardless to knock on Cuban’s bunker suite every other day and see what he’s got cooking.”

The ever optimistic Cuban recently noted that Nowitzki’s wife is much more attractive than him, so the future Hall of Famer must have some persuasive skills. Those will be tested in early July, with Nowitzki still holding out hope that he can help talk Chris Paul and/or Dwight Howard into leaving Los Angeles for Dallas – or at least help recruit more realistic talent upgrades.

“I can try, but I’m really not the most positive person,” Nowitzki said. “I guess that’s a German thing.”

Nowitzki can confidently talk in glowing terms about his experiences living in Dallas and playing for Cuban, Nelson and coach Rick Carlisle. Those three men would be a major part of Nowitzki’s basketball sales pitch.

“We have a great owner and a great GM in place. We have a great coach in place that coached us to win the championship,” Nowitzki said. “We’ve got a couple of veterans (Shawn Marion and Vince Carter) still under contract. We’ve got some veteran leadership already, and then we’ve got a lot of roster space.

“We’ve got some cap space and we can get some players in here that can help. I think all those three experienced guys, they’ve still got something left in the tank. Come on in, we’ll see how far we can ride it out.”

Nowitzki plans to ride it out in Dallas until he retires, which is at least three years away.

A fistful of statistical nuggets before the Mavericks play host to Indiana on Thursday night:

PODCAST
Marc Stein joins Fitzsimmons & Durrett to discuss the historical perspective of Miami's 27-game win streak, the Mavericks' playoff push, the job Rick Carlisle has done this season and if it's a good idea for the Mavs to shave their .500 beards. Listen

The Pacers have held 20 of their past 21 opponents under 100 points, including nine straight.

The Mavs’ 37-percent shoting from the floor in a 103-83 loss at Indiana on Nov. 16 is tied for Dallas’ third-worst shooting effort all season.

Dirk Nowitzki is shooting 53.8 percent from the floor during the Mavs’ 9-3 surge. Nowitzki shot 43.7 percent from the field in his first 30 games this season after knee surgery.

The Mavs, according to the excellent @mavstats Twitter feed, are trying to become just the third team since 1989 to make the playoffs after falling 10 games below .500 at 13-23. The Suns and Clippers both did in the 1996-97 season.

One leftover from Tuesday night’s win over the Clippers: Chris Paul was hounded into seven turnovers for the second time in a span of nine days by the Mavericks. Paul endured only five games with seven or more turnovers in his eight-season career to that point ... and none since February 2011.

DALLAS – Dirk Nowitzki’s overtime dominance doesn’t happen unless the Mavericks’ most maligned clutch player came through with the game on the line.

PODCAST
Tim MacMahon joins Fitzsimmons and Durrett to discuss his recent conversation with Dez Bryant, the Cowboys' attempt at landing free agents without money and the Mavs' playoff push. Listen

O.J. Mayo had two huge buckets in the final 82 seconds of regulation to give the Mavs a chance to pull off Tuesday night’s thrilling upset over the Clippers.

Yes, the same Mayo whose clutch turnovers have caused Mavs fans to scream countless cusswords over the course of an often frustrating season.

Yes, the same Mayo whose production has plummeted all season long against the West’s best teams.

None of that mattered once Mayo got matched up against the smaller Chris Paul in crunch time. Nor did the fact that Mayo made only three of his first nine shots from the floor.

Mayo’s first big bucket was an and-1 turnaround off a post-up that tied the score with 1:22 remaining. The second was one of the most memorable plays of the Mavs season, with Mayo spinning away from the help defense to beat Paul on the baseline before flipping in a pretty lefty layup to tie it up again with less than a second remaining.

“Guys that are 'players' – and I put players in quotes – they don’t worry about their shooting percentage,” coach Rick Carlisle said. “You’ve got to stay in the now and you’ve got to trust all the years that you’ve practiced and trained. In those situations, O.J. is one of those guys that all he’s thinking about is how to get the ball in the basket. He looks at it as an opportunity.

“Guys that are wired that way, whenever you can get ‘em, you want to get ‘em.”

This isn’t out of character for Mayo. He’s been a prolific clutch scorer all season. According to NBA.com’s advanced stats, Mayo ranks eighth in the league with 109 clutch points (scored in last five minutes with the score within five points). Yet his most memorable crunch-time plays have been turnovers, a league-high three of which came in the final 10 seconds of losses, and missed free throws.

Those failures didn’t instill any fear in Mayo.

“He wants to win and he’s not scared of the moment,” Elton Brand said. “He’s putting himself in situations to tie the game. Some guys shy away from it. He’s put himself in situations all year. Sometimes he succeeded; sometimes he didn’t. That’s the mentality he has to have.”

Mayo’s description of his crunch-time mindset: “Keep being aggressive. Obviously, you’re not going to make every shot. I want to. … Just keep being in that attack mentality and try to win ballgames.”

Mayo played a major role in winning this one.

A few more notes from the Mavs’ most impressive win of the season:

1. BOOOOOO!!!!: Mavs fans made their feelings for Lamar Odom loud and clear, booing as soon as he took off his warmups to check into the game and again every single time he touched the ball.

Odom earned that wrath with his inexcusable lack of effort during his 50-game stint with the Mavs last season, which ended after Mark Cuban finally got sick of it and essentially kicked him off the team, albeit with pay.

Of course, Odom shrugged it off after his six-point, six-rebound, 19-minute outing in the Clippers’ loss.

“I’ve played in really hostile environments all my life,” Odom said. “It’s sports. You got to expect that. That’s what we love about sports.

“I’ve played in the championship round before, you know what I’m saying? In Boston. That’s what happens. That’s what we really love in the game. That’s the way it’s going to be in the playoffs for everybody.”

2. Big D in Dirk: It’s natural to focus on the fact that Nowitzki scored a season high 33 points on 12-of-21 shooting. Especially since he shouldered the offensive load in overtime, singlehandedly outscoring the Clippers while accounting for the Mavs’ first eight points of the extra period.

Just don’t overlook Dirk’s contribution on defense.

“If you remember, he was the one out there trapping Chris Paul to get it out of his hands,” Brand said. “He’s out there running, trapping, rotating and then coming down and scoring. It was great, great leadership by Dirk.”

3. Brand banging: Elton Brand joked that he feels like a leper because the Mavs coaching staff is so fixated on making sure he gets rest. They won’t even let him do much during shootarounds.

Brand needs all the energy he can muster to bang with guys like Blake Griffin.

Brand more than held his own against the young, explosive All-Star power forward. He held Griffin, who scored only 14 points on 4-of-12 shooting, in check.

“It’s a team effort any time you try to stop a scorer like that,” said Brand, who had eight points, five rebounds and four blocks in 25 minutes.

That’s a swell thing for Brand to say, but the stats don’t lie. Griffin had 11 points on 3-of-6 shooting in the 21 minutes he was on the floor and Brand was watching from the bench. In the 15 minutes they were matched up, which included the majority of OT, Griffin scored only three points on 1-of-6 shooting.

DALLAS -- Any discussion about the Dallas Mavericks as a playoff team is premature.

At least it is if it’s in the presence of the men who just want to keep their heads down and continue digging their way out of the massive hole they created in the first half of the season.

PODCAST
Tim MacMahon joins Fitzsimmons and Durrett to discuss his recent conversation with Dez Bryant, the Cowboys' attempt at landing free agents without money and the Mavs' playoff push. Listen

The Mavs got a huge shovel full of dirt with Tuesday’s come-from-behind, 109-102 overtime win over the Los Angeles Clippers. That makes nine wins in the last 12 games for Dallas, and this one over a legitimate contender was the kind that might make you believe that the Mavs really can make the playoffs for the 13th consecutive year.

How ridiculous would that thought have seemed the last time the Mavs faced the Clippers? That was Jan. 9, when a loss in the Staples Center dropped Dallas to 13-23, a dozen-year low of 10 games under .500.

Fast forward to the present: There’s still much work to do, but the playoffs are a distinct possibility for the bushy-bearded Mavs, who at 35-36 are one win away from shaving and one game behind the Los Angeles Lakers for the West’s last playoff spot.

The Mavs aren’t about to puff out their chests and pump up their playoff hopes. They just want to keep on rolling and see where they stand at the end of the regular season.

“We started so far behind the 8 ball that we need a heck of a finish here,” Dirk Nowitzki said after dropping a season-high 33 points on the Clippers, who he single-handedly outscored by an 8-5 margin in overtime. “But we’ve been playing well. We’ve been playing our best basketball of the season, so it’s a good time for that.

“We’re just going to let it rip and try to win the next game and not get carried away and look ahead and not get happy with the wins. Keep grinding and see if we can make a serious push down the stretch.”

This was a win worth smiling about for at least a few minutes.

It was just the second time all season the Mavs managed to beat one of the West’s top five teams. It was only their second overtime win in 10 tries. It was tangible reason to believe that the Mavs’ recent success wasn’t just fool’s gold.

The Mavs overcame an amazing performance by Chris Paul, who scored 10 of his 33 points in the final 4:13 of regulation, including what could have been the game-winning bucket with 5.9 seconds remaining. But O.J. Mayo answered with an amazing drive and lefty finish of his own with less than a tick on the clock, forcing the game into overtime.

At that point, a Dallas team that has crumbled in the clutch so many times this season played with poise and toughness reminiscent of the title run made two years ago by an almost totally different roster.

Oh, Dirk was the good, ol’ Dirk, getting two buckets off post-ups early in the OT to give the Mavs a lead that they never let go. It was Dallas’ defense, though, that made the difference.

They trapped Paul as often as possible, forcing the ball out of his hands and keeping him scoreless after a jumper on the Clippers’ first possession of the extra period. L.A. missed seven straight shots at one point against the scrambling Dallas D.

As coach Rick Carlisle said, this win represented the way the Mavs need to play if they want to be playing in late April. And the Mavs have got to keep this kind of effort coming, especially with their next four games against playoff-bound foes.

“I’m not big on signature wins with 11 to go in the season,” Carlisle said. “This is one of many more wins we’ve got to get. This game was about grit and guts more so than X’s and O’s. As Chuck Daly once said, in games like this, wipe everything off the board. It’s all about attitude. This is one of those games, and our guys hung in.”

The Mavs hung in while Nowitzki missed the first 27 games while recovering from arthroscopic knee surgery. They hung in after things got worse once their lone star returned and struggled, a testament to the professionalism, pride and persistence of a team loaded with dudes whose Dallas stints could be one-and-done.

The odds are still against the Mavs -- although they’ve improved massively this month -- but you can guarantee that they won’t go down easily.

“We’re fighters,” Mayo said. “We’re going to keep coming. We’re going to keep coming until I guess they say the fat lady sings. We’re going to keep coming, keep trying to get better, keep trying to win ballgames and give ourselves a shot.”

Added Nowitzki: “It’s a good time to play your best basketball, so we’ll see how far we can take it.”

They’ve come far enough to get the razors ready and have legitimate hope that removing the beards won’t be the high point of the season. They’ve still got a long way to go to feel any sense of satisfaction.

How it happened: Dirk Nowitzki proved he can still slam the door on a contender.

Nowitzki dominated the overtime period to carry the Mavs to a much-needed upset over the Los Angeles Clippers in a wild game that featured a Western Conference playoff-intensity feel.

Nowitzki scored eight of his season-high 33 points in the extra period. His 16-footer with 3:28 remaining gave the Mavs a lead that they never relinquished.

The Mavs had to overcome a phenomenal clutch flurry by perennial All-Star point guard Chris Paul, who scored the Clippers’ last 10 points in regulation. That offensive outburst by Paul, who matched Nowitzki with a game-high 33 points, lasted 4:13 and ended with a go-ahead floater in traffic with 5.3 seconds remaining.

But O.J. Mayo answered by driving past Paul on the baseline and hitting a crafty left-handed layup to tie it up with 0.6 ticks on the clock. The game went into overtime after Blake Griffin’s bucket off a full-court, inbound pass from Matt Barnes was wiped out due to Griffin pushing Nowitzki before catching the ball.

Paul drilled a midrange jumper on the Clippers’ first overtime possession, but that was Los Angeles’ last bucket of the game until 6.7 seconds remained. The Clippers’ lone points in the final 4:17 came on a DeAndre Jordan free throw and a Griffin jumper in the final seconds. The Clippers missed seven straight shots from the floor, none of which were attempted by Paul.

Barnes air-balled a 3-pointer that would have tied the game with 22.9 seconds remaining.

Nowitzki scored the Mavs’ first eight overtime points, going 3-of-3 from the floor and 4-of-4 from the free throw line before Darren Collison sealed the win with four free throws.

What it means: The Mavs (35-36) are a win away from shaving those .500 beards, and, more importantly, only one game behind the eighth-place Los Angeles Lakers in the West standings. The Mavs have won nine of the past 12 games to breathe life into their playoff hopes. They’re now 2-13 against the top five teams in the West this season.

Play of the game: Nowitzki’s overtime heroics wouldn’t have been possible without Mayo’s game-tying drive in the final seconds of regulation. Mayo spun past Paul on the baseline, dribbling with his right hand, took off with his right foot, twisted his body to get a good angle and dropped in a lefty layup off the glass.

Stat of the night: With his second bucket of the night, Nowitzki moved past Patrick Ewing into 17th place on the all-time scoring list. Nowitzki has 24,845 points and counting.

DALLAS – The questions about Mark Cuban’s strategy started being questioned before the ink was even dry on Tyson Chandler’s contract with the New York Knicks.

The outrage increased as the defending champion Mavericks, or what was left of them, stumbled through their least successful season in a dozen-year span, concluding with a first-round sweep. The roars are reaching a deafening level now that any realist can see Dallas is in rebuilding mode -- and superstar Dirk Nowitzki’s doubts about the financially flexible, 15-23 Mavs’ future are on record.

“The logic, I thought, was still sound,” Cuban said Saturday night. “I think there’s a lot of people that thought I was an idiot now. There’s a better than even chance that they’re right, but that was the logic.”

That logic, as Cuban explained in great detail in a Dec. 2011 email to ESPNDallas.com, was based on the value of salary cap room under the new, more restrictive collective bargaining agreement. The fear was being locked into an aging roster that had already peaked with extremely limited options of upgrading.

The plan has backfired so far.

The way the dominoes fell last season certainly didn’t help. When the Mavs opted for this plan, they reasonably believed that the 2012 free agency market would feature Chris Paul, Dwight Howard and Deron Williams. That isn’t the way it went down.

Paul exercised a contractual option for this season after lobbying his way out of New Orleans, landing in Los Angeles with the Clippers after a deal with the Lakers was vetoed by the commissioner’s office. He’s the centerpiece on a legitimate contender now, so the odds of him being available this summer are closer to none than slim.

Howard went all wishy-washy before shocking the basketball world by opting in for the final year of his deal with the Orlando Magic, a decision he almost immediately regretted. His pouting pushed the Magic to deal him to the Lakers this summer, and as much as this edition of Showtime has disappointed, it’d be surprising to see Howard leave significant money on the table to leave L.A. this summer.

The Mavs swung and missed on Williams this summer, with Cuban infamously skipping the face-to-face recruiting pitch to Dallas’ Plan C to film “Shark Tank” in L.A.

When James Harden got shipped to Houston and signed a max contract, that meant there would probably be no true “big fish” on the market this summer. If the Mavs throw big money at a free agent in July, it’ll likely be second-tier center Al Jefferson or injury-prone big man Andrew Bynum.

That certainly wasn’t the plan.

However, Cuban insisted all along that the point of the Mavs creating significant cap space for the first time during his ownership tenure was solely “in hope of that one super special free agent being there.” He has consistently pointed out that having cap space allows teams much more freedom to make trades under the new rules.

That’s what makes the time before the Feb. 21 trade deadline so important for the Mavs. It might represent their best chance to make a significant roster upgrade before next season.

Too bad the Mavs don’t have any young talent that would be enticing in the trade market. They are armed with a bushel of expiring contracts, which could be particularly attractive to teams attempting to avoid harsh luxury-tax penalties now and in the future. Maybe the Mavs can get a nice prize by being the facilitator in a multi-team deal.

There is a “100 percent chance” the Mavs try to make a trade this season, Cuban declared. For who? Cuban and right-hand man Donnie Nelson have 5½ weeks to figure it out.

If the Mavs keep swinging and missing through this summer, they’ll be stuck in rebuilding mode for the final year of Nowitzki’s contract. And it’s reached the point that even Cuban can’t deny that the R-word fits the current state of the Mavs.

“It’s just a label,” Cuban said. “It doesn’t matter. Strategy is all that matters. Tactics is all that matter. We’ve defined our strategy. We laid it out before we did it. We told everybody what we’d do. Our tactics have been the same since we’ve got here, so there’s nothing to change.”

Nothing but the roster, which requires a major overhaul. Cuban will continue working on it and hope the results are a heck of a lot better than they’ve been the past 13 months.

It seems like the Mavericks hit a new dozen-year low on a daily basis.

It happened again Wednesday night despite a spirited fight against the team with the NBA’s best record. The Mavs’ 99-93 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers dropped the Mavs to 10 games below .500 for the first time since March 30, 2000, the last season the franchise failed to make the playoffs.

The Mavs are 13-23 after losing 10 of their last 11 games and 13 of their last 15. They head to Sacramento for the butt end of a back-to-back staring up at the lowly Kings in the West standings.

It’d take an absolute miracle for the Mavs 12-year playoff streak to be extended. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, no West team has qualified for the playoffs after being 10 games below .500 at any point of the season in at least 15 years.

“We’re going to keep digging,” point guard Darren Collison told reporters after leading the Mavs with 22 points. “It’s early on in the season. We’re going to keep a positive mindset. I tell you one thing: Once we get this rolling, we turn this thing over, I don’t think there’s no looking back for us.”

It’s early in the season, but it looks like it’s too late for the Mavs.

A few more quick notes from the Mavs’ loss in L.A.:

1. Fourth-quarter failure: The Mavs managed to build a double-digit lead in the third quarter and it lasted all of 3:15. The Clippers closed the third strong and outscored the Mavs 27-18 in the final frame to claim the win.

That’s the continuation of a troubling trend for the Mavs, who have been miserable closing games. It’s been especially painful lately, with the Mavs leading entering the fourth quarter in the last three games and losing each time.

“It just seems like the same story I keep telling you guys over and over,” said Collison, who didn’t score any of his 22 points in the fourth quarter. “We’re right there, making the same mistakes. We’re all hurting, too. We’re feeling the same pain after every game.”

The most painful moments down the stretch in this loss were a couple of offensive rebounds by ex-Mav Caron Butler on one late possession. The Clippers didn’t score, but the extra possessions basically served like a couple of first downs for a football team protecting a two-score lead.

Vince Carter, who was on the floor instead of Mavs’ leading rebounder Shawn Marion, failed to box out Butler.

“Down the stretch, you’ve got to get a rebound,” Dirk Nowitzki said. “You can’t give up two offensive rebounds when you get a good stop.”

2. CP3 special: Sometimes you’ve just got to give the other guy credit. Clippers point guard Chris Paul showed why he’s a leading MVP candidate with a 19-point, 16-assist performance.

Paul took over the game in the fourth quarter, scoring six points and dishing out six assists.

"They've got the best leader to me right now in the league," Nowitzki said. "Chris Paul can turn it up anytime he wants. He can take games over.”

3. Look at Lam Lam: Lamar Odom’s line (four points, two rebounds, three assists, five fouls, one steal) doesn’t look very impressive, but one of the biggest dogs in Dallas sports history continued to help the Clippers.

Odom was a key part of the Clippers’ closing unit, doing a respectable job defending Dirk down the stretch. L.A. was plus-8 in his 27 minutes. L.A. is plus-191 in Odom’s 671 minutes this season despite him being in awful shape for the first month or so.

How it happened: Despite a strong third-quarter effort, the Dallas Mavericks ran out of steam Wednesday night against the Los Angeles Clippers continuing their downward spiral with a 99-93 loss to the team with the NBA’s best record.

Point guard Darren Collison led the Mavericks with 22 points, but only five of those came in the second half. He made 7 of 11 shots for 17 points to lead all scorers at halftime.

The Mavs took their first lead of the game, 58-57, on Shawn Marion’s 3-pointer early in the third quarter. They led by as many as 10 following Collison’s 3-pointer with just over two minutes left in the third, but the Clippers finished the quarter on a 7-0 run.

The Clippers stormed back and took a brief lead on Chris Paul’s steal and breakaway layup with 9:05 remaining in the fourth, sparking a comeback that had the sellout crowd jumping.

Shooting guard Vince Carter missed a jump shot that would have cut the deficit to two with under seven seconds remaining.

What it means: The Mavericks are 2-13 (.133) dating to Dec. 2, tying the Washington Wizards for the worst record in the NBA over that stretch. It’s the worst span for Dallas since the 1999-2000 season, which also marks the last season in which the Mavericks missed the playoffs. The Clippers have now won their last three games against the Mavs, their longest winning streak against them since 2006.

Play of the game: There weren’t any of those trademark lobs inside Staples Center but Lamar Odom had an impressive dunk over Chris Kaman in the first half, which probably left Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle wondering where that athleticism was last season.

Stat of the night: Matt Barnes tied a season high with five 3-pointers made, helping the Clippers’ bench outscore the Mavericks’ 43-19. He and Paul each had 19 points to lead the Clippers.

Dirk Nowitzki never wants to play for another NBA franchise, but he also doesn’t want to finish his career just fighting for the West’s final playoff spot.

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That’s his fear for the franchise’s future if the Mavericks strike out again in the free-agency market this summer.

“Ultimately, my goal was always to finish my career in Dallas,” Nowitzki told ESPN in an interview taped before Wednesday’s Mavs-Clippers game. “The only way if I was going to leave was if we hadn't won a championship and I would have been chasing my last two years or whatever like (Gary) Payton and (Karl) Malone did when they went (to the Lakers) with Kobe and Shaq. Something like that, maybe I could have seen myself doing at the end.

“But since I got that ring now, I think I’m going to finish my career in Dallas, but I obviously do want to be competitive my last couple of years and I do want to play not for the eight seed. Saying all that, I’ve got this year left and next year (on his contract), so hopefully we can still make a push here this season and get something going this summer and be competitive again.”

Nowitzki reiterated his comments made over the weekend to ESPNDallas.com regarding his concerns in the likely scenario that the Mavs aren’t able to land Dwight Howard or Chris Paul in free agency, stating again that Mark Cuban’s CBA-influenced decision to let Tyson Chandler and other key championship contributors leave could be judged as a mistake or not after this summer. Smiling, Nowitzki added that he “took some heat” from Cuban about the comments.

The championship ring earned filled in the final line on Nowitzki’s resume to join the list of all-time NBA legends.

It did not, however, quench his thirst to compete for titles.

“You want that again,” Nowitzki said. “You want to experience it again. You don’t want to fight for the eight spot. I think that’s pretty clear that once you win, you want to keep winning and you want to keep being competitive at least.

“You never know. You never plan a championship, but at least you want to be able to compete. To play for the playoffs or just to make the eight spot, that’s not the way we carry ourselves in Dallas.”

As far as Nowitzki’s future with the Mavs goes, the question isn’t whether he’ll force his way to another franchise. It is: How long will he continue to play if the Mavs aren’t competitive?

Nowitzki said in October that he’d like to play at least through the 2015-16 season, two years after his current contract expires. He could certainly reconsider if the Mavs aren’t good enough to do anything more than scrap for a playoff spot.

LOS ANGELES – With each lob and highlight reel dunk they finished, the Los Angeles Clippers kept further embarrassing the Dallas Mavericks.

It was bad enough that the Mavericks struggled with simple tasks like getting the ball across half-court and stopping dribble penetration, but the Clippers made sure to add insult to injury in their 112-90 thrashing of the Mavs.

“Yeah, it’s embarrassing to lose like that, especially at the end of the game. They’re playing around throwing lobs back and forth during the last two, three minutes of the game,” said forward Shawn Marion. “That’s embarrassing. You’re not supposed to lose like that. It sucks.”

Chris Paul, despite only having 14 points, set the tone for the night with his 13 assists and five steals. He dissected the Mavericks’ defense like an in-class science experiment, creating high-percentage opportunities for his teammates and occasionally finishing plays himself.

Defensively, though, is where he may have made an even bigger mark against the Mavs.

In a 15-second stretch in the middle of the second quarter, Paul stole the ball from O.J. Mayo and Darren Collison on consecutive possessions, with both turnovers resulting in Clipper baskets.

Paul’s bulldoggish perimeter defense coupled with Jamal Crawford’s sweet shooting – he converted on a four-point play with 3:15 remaining in the second quarter – proved too much for Dallas, as the Clippers used a 29-15 second quarter run to take the lead from 31-27 with 8:14 remaining to 60-42 at the half.

The Clippers never looked back. They clamped down defensively on the Mavericks, controlled the boards (49-41) and forced a horde of tough Dallas shots and careless turnovers.

Mayo and Collison, two of the Mavericks’ top offensive options this year, simply couldn’t score. Mayo finished with 11 points on 4-for-12 shooting and had four turnovers, while Collison had eight points on 2-for-5 shooting to go along with his five turnovers.

The silver lining for Mayo is that dished out seven assists, tied for his season-high, which proves that even when his shot’s not falling or an opposing defense is keying in on him (as they have of late), he’s still capable of impacting the game offensively.

To pick up the offensive slack of their normally deft backcourt tandem, the Mavericks spread the wealth among the rest of the roster. Vince Carter was impressive off the bench, leading the Mavs in scoring with 16 points and showing some Vinsanity-level flashes of athleticism.

Shawn Marion and Chris Kaman attacked the Clippers early and often, using their diverse skillsets to complement each other and score 14 points apiece. Kaman ended up going 6-for-13 from the floor, but he had a lot of good looks and missed some chippies.

Virtually every other Maverick was a non-factor offensively, which is in part why the Mavs shot 40.5 percent from the field compared to the Clippers’ 50 percent.

Well, all except for one unexpected contributor.

Derek Fisher, he of 1-for-8 shooting in his putrid debut against Detroit, scored 15 points on 5-for-11 shooting, including three 3-pointers.

“Fisher was a plus-2 during the game, which is a positive stat,” said Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle. “It’s obvious he’s getting his legs. He kept himself in good shape before he was brought in. That’s a building block, but we have to have everyone doing good things and we just weren’t there tonight.”

Despite Fisher’s impressive shooting display, he and Collison couldn’t stay in front of Paul, who got into the paint at will, finding perimeter shooters left and right, and creating for Griffin and Jordan inside.

As a matter of fact, the Mavericks didn’t really stop anyone, as Blake Griffin (19 points, 13
rebounds), Jamal Crawford (20 points), Caron Butler (16 points), DeAndre Jordan (12 points) and Matt Barnes (11 points) all shot over 50 percent from the field.

“Defensively, we just have to help each other and continue to stay on a string,” Carter said. “We get a little lackadaisical as a team and we just have to stick with it.”

Carlisle warned before the game that the Mavericks needed to get out in transition, protect the ball and prevent Clipper “paint points.” Instead, they rarely ran, had a bunch of turnovers and were dominated in points in the paint, 62-30.

“I didn’t like the turnovers. I felt that the turnovers keyed most of the problems,” Carlisle said after the game. “Tonight, we fragmented at the wrong times and turned it over, which led to an avalanche of problems.”

The Mavericks turned the ball over 22 times, an unacceptable number under any circumstance, but especially on the road. Those 22 turnovers turned into 26 Clipper points, most of which were highlight-filled lobs, including several flushes by Griffin, Jordan and Bledsoe.

Disregarding a short Maverick run in the third quarter that brought the lead back down to 12 points with 6:00 left, Dallas was never really in this game. They trailed from start to finish, a disheartening sign no matter how talented or athletic the opponent is.

The Mavericks have now lost five of their last seven games and are two games under .500 (8-10) for the first time this season. It’s been a roller coaster of a season, and the news that Nowitzki will now be out longer than expected doesn’t exactly help them solve their glaring issues.

With five of their next six games on the road, where they already have five double-digit losses, the Mavericks have to get their act together before the season’s lost and Nowitzki’s return becomes irrelevant.

How it happened: Chris Paul, Chris Paul and some more Chris Paul.

The point guard, who Dallas Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle dubbed "probably the best in the game" in his pregame interview, had 14 points, 13 assists and five steals. He exerted his will from start to finish and harassed the Mavs' backcourt all night.

But Paul had a lot of help, too.

Blake Griffin, fresh off a 30-point, 11-rebound performance in Utah, chipped in with 19 points and 13 rebounds. Jamal Crawford added 20 points off the bench, including a four-point play off an O.J. Mayo foul.

Speaking of Mayo, the Mavericks' leading scorer came back down to earth Wednesday, scoring only 11 points on 4-for-12 shooting. The Clippers paid specific attention to him any time he touched the ball, which resulted in seven assists, tying his season-high.

With Mayo struggling, the Mavs looked elsewhere for offensive production and found it in Vince Carter (16 points off the bench), Derek Fisher (15 points), Chris Kaman (14 points) and Shawn Marion (14 points).

In a perturbing road trend, the Mavericks turned the ball over 22 times, resulting in 26 points off of turnovers for the Clippers. Even worse, 18 of those turnovers came off Clipper steals, a clear sign that the Mavericks were not making smart decisions offensively.

The Clippers took control in the second quarter, when they outscored the Mavericks 29-15 over the final 8:14 and turned the contest into a blowout. L.A. also outrebounded the Mavs 49-41 and held Dallas to just 40.5 percent shooting from the field.

What it means: The Mavericks, who have lost five of their last seven games, drop to 8-10 on the season and a disappointing 2-7 on the road. What's worse is that five of those seven road losses have been by double-digits. They will look to bounce back in Phoenix on Thursday.

Play of the game: Crawford's four-point play with 3:15 remaining in the second quarter. The basket, which was preceded by consecutive 3-pointers by Caron Butler and Crawford, gave the Clippers an 18-point lead and established permanent control. Crawford is the all-time leader in four-point plays with 34 throughout his 13-year career.

Stat of the night: "Paint points," as Carlisle referred to them prior to tipoff. The Clippers outscored the Mavericks 62-30 in the paint and it wasn't even that close. Wednesday's loss showed the limitations of the Mavericks' front line against more athletic opposition.

LOS ANGELES -- Asked before Wednesday's game if he hoped the matchup against the Los Angeles Clippers would turn into a high-paced affair, Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle cracked a smile and paused.

"We hope so, yeah. We would like to be fast-paced without turning the ball over," Carlisle said. "These guys (the Clippers) are among the very best in the league at not only turning you over, but taking the ball and scoring at the other end."

Carlisle stressed the importance of playing cohesive team basketball, especially against a Clippers squad with a lot of talented individual pieces.

"We're the epitome of a true team. We've got to be really persistent and really efficient with the ball," Carlisle said. "That's our avenue to winning games. Each minute, each second of each game is important to us."

The key to defending Los Angeles, Carlisle said, is to try to take away "paint points," more specifically "lob dunks" and "Chris Paul drives."

Which means, according to Carlisle, turning up the pace and getting out in transition. The Mavericks currently rank second in fastbreak points per game (16.8) and are third in pace factor, which estimates the number of possessions a team has per game.

"We're not set up to play a grinding, half-court game with the way our team is structured right now," Carlisle said. "We want to play aggressively and we want to be in attack mode."

As has been the trend this season, Carlisle wouldn't release his starting lineup, alluding to his "starting eight" as the more important theme for the Mavs. He did say, however, that O.J. Mayo and Shawn Marion are the only two locks to close a game at this point in this season.

The Clippers’ big men jump over cars. The Mavs’ big men might be able to jump over a credit card.

The Mavs can’t match the athleticism of Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan, Lob City’s frontcourt finishers. For that matter, they’re at a major quickness disadvantage when Derek Fisher is defending Chris Paul.

The Mavs will have to figure out other ways to compete with the Clippers.

“These guys are as dynamic and athletic as they come, so we’re going to have to approach it with a team game,” Mavs coach Rick Carlisle said. “That’s how we have to do things. We’ve got to do things hard. We’ve got to do things together.”

Records: Mavs (8-9); Clippers (11-6)

When: 9:30 p.m.

Where: Staples Center

TV: ESPN/FSSW

Radio: ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM/1270 AM (Spanish)

What to watch: Can O.J. Mayo keep the hot hand? He busted out of his first mini-slump as a Mav by lighting up the Pistons for 24 points in the second half of Saturday’s win. Mayo, the league’s eight-leading scorer at 20.2 points per game, is shooting the 3 with historic efficiency. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, among the 300 players who have attempted at least 80 3-pointers in the first 17 games of their season, Mayo has hit the highest percentage (52.7). The next 3 Mayo makes will be his 50th of the season, which would make him the fastest Mav to that milestone if it comes on this road trip.

Key matchup: Derek Fisher vs. Chris Paul – The 38-year-old Fisher was pleased with his conditioning in his first game of the season Saturday night. It’ll really get tested tonight, when he has to chase around arguably the NBA’s premier point guard. However, don’t totally dismiss the old head. The last time Fisher started against Paul, the Clippers’ star was held to four points in a loss to the Lakers, although Paul did have 12 assists and zero turnovers in that game last season.

Injuries: Mavs – PF Dirk Nowitzki (knee) is out. Clippers – F Grant Hill (knee) and F Trey Thompkins (knee) are out.

Up next: at Phoenix Suns, 9:30 p.m. Thursday