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IRVING, Texas -- Not every head coach is equipped with the patience level to co-exist long term with an owner who practically sits on the team bench during most games, chronically chastises referees and talks to his players on the periphery of the timeout huddle.

(See Don Nelson, Avery Johnson).

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Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle joins "The Herd" to discuss his contract extension, Mark Cuban, Jason Terry, Dirk Nowitzki and the NBA playoffs. Listen

Rick Carlisle, however, seemed to come to Dallas in May 2008 not only prepared for it, but eager to embrace owner Mark Cuban's intense and unorthodox style of watching his team play. Carlisle probably figured Cuban isn't going to change so it'd behoove him to work with it instead of against it. And it's probably one big reason why Carlisle, 52, agreed to a new four-year contract Tuesday that next season will push him past Nelson as the longest-tenured coach under Cuban's watch.

There are other reasons why Carlisle wanted to remain in Dallas when other lucrative coaching opportunities would quickly have presented themselves. At the top of the list is that Carlisle trusts the track record of Cuban and president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson. He believes they will always provide the resources to compete, or at least aggressively pursue those resources -- a belief that will be put to the test during this offseason of potentially unprecedented roster turnover.

"I can’t think of another owner and GM that has been able to reinvent a franchise more times in a short period of time than Mark and Donnie (Nelson)," Carlisle said, noting how the duo acquired Jason Terry and Devin Harris after losing Steve Nash to Phoenix in free agency. "We’re at a point now where we’re going to make some things happen. I see things happening in a variety of different ways. I don’t see it being only free agency or only being trades or only being the draft. I think we’re going to be very active with all three modes of getting a team better."

As inventive as the front office has been through the years, Carlisle has proved equally adept on the bench as an in-game tactician and making himself flexible and open-minded enough to capture veteran egos. This season's disappointing 36-30 record, the first in a dozen seasons in which the Mavs did not finish with a .600 winning percentage (the equivalent of 50 wins), came under the most unusual of circumstances given the NBA lockout, the dismantling of the title team, the short training camp, injuries and the Lamar Odom saga to name a few.

As the offseason beckons with cap space to burn for the first time in Cuban's tenure, Carlisle said he and his staff will be active the next month scouring every position on every team to identify potential trade targets. But, Carlisle acknowledged, the architects of the next Mavs team will predominantly be Cuban and Nelson.

"We all kind of place our eggs in their basket knowing that they’re going to do the work, they have the resources, but this is going to be work," Carlisle said. "We’re going to have to do a lot of homework. We’re going to have to be opportunistic and resourceful and we’ve got the greatest fans in the NBA and we want to put the best team on the floor we can for them."

Mavericks forward Shawn Marion, who finished eighth in Defensive Player of the Year voting, went under the knife Friday and, for all you pre-Med MFFLs, shared the experience online via Mobli and then posted to his Twitter account (@matrix31).

He underwent a minor procedure to have a lipoma, a common benign fatty tissue, removed from the back of his shoulder. Marion didn't actually record the outpatient surgery, although he says he wishes he could have. He did provide a photo of the removed fatty tissue in a jar and a groggy, post-op Mobli.com video from the car on his way home explaining what just went down.

(Be warned, the mostly harmless video needs two bleeps for inappropriate language).

Marion arrived back in Dallas on Monday night, he tweeted, but don't expect Marion, who turned 34 on May 7, to sit still for long this offseason. His plans include his usual globetrotting as a man always on the move.

"I'm going to do it all, I enjoy my life, so I'm going do to what the hell I want to do," Marion said in his humorous showboat style during the team's exit interviews. "Its just that simple."

There's no telling yet if Marion will be a man on the move this summer from a professional standpoint, too. Marion has two years remaining on his contract. He could ultimately be included in a potential sign-and-trade deal as Dallas seeks to get younger, and he is one of two candidates along with Brendan Haywood that the Mavs can amnesty.

Or the Mavs can bring back their top perimeter defender and a core veteran leader.

"I can't sit here and tell you what they're going to do, what they decide not to do," Marion said. "It's up to those guys upstairs (Mark Cuban and Donnie Nelson) to make it happen."

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.

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.

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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.

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 -- Rodrigue Beaubois' first order of business is going home to Guadeloupe and spending time with his mother and family after the untimely death of his father in February.

Then this summer becomes all about one thing for the young guard who is coming upon the final year of his contract with the Dallas Mavericks: getting better.

"I know one thing is this summer is going to be real important for me," Beaubois said. "I will start planning my summer and make sure that I do everything I can to come back ready. It is going to be the first summer that I will be able to work out so I am going to do everything I can to be back healthy, in shape and ready to go."

Two summers ago, Beaubois fractured his left foot working out with the French national team in preparation for the 2010 World Championships. He missed two-thirds of the 2010-11 season and then re-injured the foot in the season finale and missed the entire playoffs. A second surgery last summer prevented him from returning to the basketball court until training camp opened last December.

His contributions on the court this season were again minimal, spiced by the occasional flashes that had the team believing he was a superstar-in-the-making after his rookie season. Both player and team will now settle for him being a consistent contributor.

"Right now, shoot, he's our starting point guard," president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson said during a Monday appearance on ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM's Ben & Skin Show. "We're still excited about Roddy. He's one of the fastest young point guards in the NBA and he's still developing, so there's real good upside there."

Take that starting point guard thing in the proper context, of course. Jason Kidd, Delonte West and Jason Terry are all free agents. And of course, the Mavs will looking to snare big fish Deron Williams in free agency come July.

But the fact remains that Beaubois, unless he's scooped into a cap-space-clearing trade, remains a great, young hope for a franchise that selected him 25th overall in the 2009 draft (acquired in a trade with Oklahoma City). Beaubois played the majority of his time this season at point guard, particularly when West was out for six weeks, which has to be viewed as some progress in that difficult transition.

He averaged career highs in points (8.9), assists (2.9) and minutes (21.7).

"I cannot tell you what is going to happen, but obviously I know that this summer is going to be big for me," Beaubois said. "I have to work out a lot and make sure that I am ready because if there if they give me space I will have to be ready for that."

DALLAS – When the Mavs opted not to offer Tyson Chandler and Co. long-term deals, this summer’s free-agency crop was expected to be headlined by a few superstars.

The landscape quickly changed when Chris Paul exercised his player option for next season after being traded to the Los Angeles Clippers. It changed for the worse again when Dwight Howard surprisingly committed not to opt out of the final season of his contract with the Orlando Magic just before the trade deadline.

That leaves Deron Williams as the lone big fish. What happens if the Mavs don’t convince The Colony native to come home?

“You’ve got to have your A, B, C, D and E and so on, but you also understand that this is a global plate tectonic,” president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson said. “Things are moving and situations are fluid. You go into it with eyes wide open and hopefully you can come out of it with what you want.”

The Mavs want a player who can create offense on his own, a necessity to take pressure off of Dirk Nowitzki.

PODCAST
Mavs GM Donnie Nelson gives us an inside look at the team's summer plans as the franchise has financial flexibility for the first time in over a decade. Listen

A reunion with Steve Nash is a possibility. The Mavs declined to pay what it took to keep him in Dallas eight seasons ago because of concerns about durability, but he’s coming off a season in which he led the Western Conference in assists (10.7 per game) and shot a career-best 53.2 percent from the floor.

Everyone knows the chemistry with old pal Nowitzki would click. However, the Mavs would probably take a major step back defensively by adding a 38-year-old point guard who has always been considered a liability on that end of the floor.

Houston’s Goran Dragic, who made himself a ton of money as the fill-in starter for Kyle Lowry in the second half of the season, is a much younger option. Dragic, 26, Nash’s former backup, averaged 18.0 points and 8.4 assists while shooting 49.0 percent from the floor in 28 games as a starter this season.

Some other proven shot creators in the market: New Orleans’ Eric Gordon (restricted), Memphis’ O.J. Mayo (restricted), Minnesota’s Michael Beasley (restricted and off-court issues) and Boston’s Ray Allen (turns 37 in July).

The market for big men, which will be a big need if the Mavs use the amnesty clause on Brendan Haywood, is headlined by Indiana’s Roy Hibbert (restricted), Denver’s JaVale McGee (restricted), Brooklyn’s Brook Lopez (restricted), New Orleans’ Chris Kaman, Houston’s Marcus Camby, Philadelphia’s Spencer Hawes and Chicago’s Omer Asik. The Mavs might also explore taking a minimum-salary flyer on Greg Oden in hopes of resuscitating the former No. 1 overall pick’s career after it has been derailed by knee injuries.

“There’s a lot of good players out there,” Nelson said. “Whether it’s A, B, C, D, E, F, or keep the powder dry, which is always an option. Just because we have it doesn’t mean we have to spend it.”

Is putting a subpar supporting cast around Nowitzki for another year of the twilight of his prime really an option? Isn’t there a sense of urgency to maximize the chances of winning another championship while the best player in franchise history is still a superstar?

“Listen, how many years have we made it in the playoffs in a row?” Nelson said. “We don’t plan on putting out anything less than a championship-caliber team. That’s me and Mark’s history and that’s our commitment to our fans and this city.”

They’ve got their work cut out for them this summer, especially if they swing and miss on Williams.

DALLAS -- Before Saturday's Game 4 finale, owner Mark Cuban suggested that there is no plan in place yet as to how the franchise will attack this summer. Of course it's been assumed that the Mavs, who Cuban has made sure will have cap space for the first time in his ownership, will go after a "big fish" free agent, as president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson has termed it.

And, of course, the only truly big fish is local lad Deron Williams.

Cuban said pursuing the "big fish" is not necessarily the case. Dirk Nowitzki, on Sunday during the team's exit interviews, certainly seemed to suggest that going deep-sea fishing is the goal come July 1.

"I don’t know what Mark and Donnie want to do or want to go after. I heard Mark say yesterday that he doesn’t really have a plan," Nowitzki said. "We’ll just have to wait and see, but usually I think that’s the goal, right? You have cap space so you can actually sign somebody decent. Hey, we’ll just have to wait and see and let this sink in."

Nowitzki, has two years left on the deal he signed prior to the 2010-11 season when he gave Cuban a hometown discount to be able to better pursue high-caliber free agents in his twilight years. He has said numerous times this season that he was disappointed that the team did not retain center Tyson Chandler but that he understood why Cuban made that decision.

After getting swept out of the playoffs for the first time in his dozen consecutive postseason appearances, Nowitzki sort of modified his take to reserve judgment until the summer to see if the Mavs indeed lured a "big fish." The 7-footer will enter his 15th year in the league next season and turns 34 in June.

"Concerned? Yeah, we need to get better. That’s my only concern," Nowitzki said. "As the Mavericks, usually we pride ourselves over the last decade not to play for the seventh seed or the eighth seed or just to make it into the playoffs. Our goal was always to be obviously one of the top four in the West, get home court and make a deep run. That was always our goal. It’s not just making it into the playoffs."

Nowitzki said landing a "big fish" is one goal, but that landing an agile, athletic center who can defend and rebound is key. Nowitzki said the blueprint was clear last season with Chandler. Those type of players don't grow on trees in this league and it won't be easy to fortify a front line around Nowitzki.

"My lateral movement ain’t the greatest, so to have a guy next to me that covers a lot of ground, that can guard on the perimeter as well as the post and block shots … Tyson was great at that last year," Nowitzki said. "It’s probably going to stay that way the rest of my career. My lateral movement probably ain’t improving from 34 to 36."

DALLAS – Jason Terry is welcome to return to the Mavericks.

It’s just a matter of negotiating a deal that’s agreeable to both parties. And that’s a heck of a lot harder than it sounds, considering that the Mavs hope to make major roster upgrades with their salary-cap space and the 34-year-old Terry would surely like at least one more lucrative contract.

“We’d love to have Jet back,” president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson said Sunday. “You talk about a guy that’s given his heart and soul to this franchise, and made big plays and big shots. You would love to have him back. It’s just, at what cost?”

Terry was excused from Sunday’s exit interviews so he could coach the Lady Jets, his daughter’s AAU team. However, he acknowledged after Saturday’s sweep finale that he might have played his last game in a Mavericks uniform, calling it a “hard pill to swallow.”

Terry has made it clear over the years that he has hoped to retire as a Maverick. He spent the last eight seasons in Dallas, making him the longest tenured teammate of Dirk Nowitzki's career.

In a classic Jet moment during the celebration at the end of last year's championship parade, days after Terry was the star of the title-clinching Game 6, he pointed to the spot in the American Airlines Center rafters where he thinks his No. 31 should hang one day. It’s tough for Nowitzki to envision Terry wearing that number for another team next season.

“He’s my man,” Nowitzki said. “Hopefully it’s going to work out, it’s going to work out for him the way he wants it to. Maybe he’s going to be back here. I think it’s definitely going to be weird seeing him in a different jersey, so hopefully we figure it out and he’ll be here.”

DALLAS -- Mavs president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson, perhaps sick of hearing that the franchise made a mistake by not re-signing center Tyson Chandler, suggested that the big man wouldn't have made much of a difference for Dallas this season.

In Nelson's opinion, the Mavs still wouldn't have been good enough to get past the young, improved Oklahoma City squad that just dismissed the defending champions with a first-round sweep.

"There’s no fans bigger of Tyson Chandler than the guys in that locker room and the guys in the management staff," Nelson said. "We understand what he brings to the table. But we also would not have won that series had he been here. We might have won more games, we might have put ourselves in a better position, but there’s no question that they’re a better team.

"We’d be sitting here today and you guys would be telling me, ‘Man, you guys are all locked up with no place to go and no flexibility, blah, blah, blah.' So it’s just what it is."

Nelson's take is not a consensus opinion throughout the organization. Shawn Marion's eyebrows shot up above his designer shades when informed that Nelson didn't think Chandler could have made a difference in the series.

"He really just said that?" Marion asked. "Tyson does things out there a lot of guys don't do in this league. Even if he's not scoring all the time, but it's just his presence out there, his demeanor, it can carry to wins."

Could it have carried to four wins in a series over this season's Thunder? We'll never know, but the Mavs' front office doesn't think so.

DALLAS -- Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle is at the end of his four-year contract, but president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson said Sunday that the franchise's lone championship coach isn't getting away.

"He likes us, we like him and those situations generally get worked out," Nelson said the day after the defending champions were swept out of the first round by the Oklahoma City Thunder. "Rick's not going anywhere. This is certainly not the time and place to get into depth on that issue, but I don't foresee that situation changing."

There has yet to be a time and place for discussion of a new deal for Carlisle, who was hand-picked by Nelson and handed the reins without the team interviewing any other candidates.

"This has been a great opportunity for me and my family and we love it here," Carlisle said. "That's as far as I'm going to go talking about it."

He did make some statements Sunday that might indicate he will be back for a fifth season and beyond.

"Going forward, we've got an extremely attractive situation here," Carlisle said. "We've got a great owner, it's a great city, the physical setup is second to none in terms of the proximity of everything and this is a franchise that's always going to be in the hunt."

To read the rest of the story, click here.

DALLAS -- The Mavericks finally decided that Lamar Odom's mental state is not conducive to winning.

"We’re in our playoff time right here. We need to win games," Mavs president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson said Monday after the team concluded practice. "We got to be able to look down that bench and count on folks to be consistent. Unfortunately with him in his state right now he’s just not capable of doing that. I say that with his best interest in mind. He’s going through a very, very tough personal time. We certainly understand that. But we’re in the thick of it in the West and we’ve got to win games."

On Sunday the Mavs and Odom worked out an arrangement to sever ties, ESPN.com's Marc Stein was first to report Monday morning. They will not waive him, but he will no longer be with the team.

"It’s been a frustrating situation," Nelson said. "Lamar hasn’t performed like he wants to perform and is capable of performing. He’s dealt with a lot of personal issues. At this point, we need to be able to count on some things. It’s never easy to do these things. We just need to move on."

The situation came to a head Saturday night in the 94-89 loss at Memphis. Odom played just four minutes in the first quarter and never returned even though the Mavs were already playing shorthanded without Jason Kidd and big man Ian Mahinmi.

Some Mavs were not so eager to discuss the most recent development in the Odom saga. Dirk Nowitzki, who said he was done talking about Odom after the loss at Memphis, and Jason Kidd, who returned to practice on Monday and is expected to play Tuesday against Sacramento, slipped out the side door of the team's practice facility in the basement of the American Airlines Center to avoid the waiting media.

Jason Terry did take questions but didn't reveal much about the team's reaction to the decision.

"To me, it’s like Dwight Howard and Deron Williams. You’re talking about something that ain’t here, so I really don’t have much to say," Terry said. "He’s not here anymore. We won’t know how much we miss him until the season’s over, I guess."

Terry said Nelson informed the team Odom would not be returning prior to Monday's practice. Terry and center Brendan Haywood said that Odom had not become a distraction in the locker room even though there have been frustrations throughout the season with Odom's poor production and apparent lack of energy and enthusiasm.

"It’s a tough situation," Terry said. "It’s always tough to adjust to a new situation. And for whatever reason it didn’t work out for him. We wish him the best. He’s a great dude. Again, our focus is strictly on Sacramento. When we came in today, after Donnie made his decision, he said our focus is on Sacramento and getting into the playoffs. We got nine games left. I don’t know when the last time a team has won the championship and not made the playoffs."

Terry was informed that the last such fall from grace occurred during the last lockout-shortened season in 1999 after the Chicago Bulls ended the Michael Jordan era by dismantling the second edition of the three-peat champions.

"I don’t want that to repeat," Terry said. "As a leader of this team, I’m saying that our focus is primarily on Sacramento and beating them tomorrow."

Mavs coach Rick Carlisle offered no insight into the decision, leaving that duty to Nelson.

"I’m not going to comment on it any further," Carlisle said. "Donnie just went through the whole thing. It’s just time to turn the page."

Carlisle's job is to plug the 20.5 minutes a game Odom played mostly behind Nowitzki while averaging career lows with 6.2 points and 4.2 rebounds.

"We’ll adjust," Carlisle said. "We’ve got other guys. I really feel that we have other guys that are ready to step up. So that’s what we’ll do."

Carlisle said he'll consider giving 6-10 Brandan Wright, a natural power forward asked to play center in Dallas, more minutes at forward.

Nelson said the team remained as patient as it could before making this move.

"Your hope is that at some point the light goes on," Nelson said. "But look, we are in crunch time. Every game counts. We need to be able to focus and move forward, and that’s what we’re doing."

The Mavs will continue to pay Odom his $8.9 million salary this season and are still on the hook for $2.4 million he's owed next season. Nelson said the team was aware of Odom's fragile psyche when they sent a trade exception and a top-20 protected first-round pick to the Lakers in December and he said they don't feel cheated four months later.

The Mavs had a chance to end ties with Odom following his strange personal leave that bridged All-Star weekend. The team was also in Memphis in late March when Odom, his agent Jeff Schwartz, and Mavs owner Mark Cuban met at the W Hotel next to the AAC to discuss Odom's future. They agreed to bring him back.

"There was no cheating because the player that he was last year, there’s reasons for that not happening this year, some of which none of us will know," Nelson said. "There are personal issues that he’s going through. I think all of us understand the sensitivities when you lose someone close to you in your family and the things that he’s been through. It’s been a very, very difficult year for him. We’re understanding. We certainly tried to make it work, but at this point, we need to move on for both parties’ interests."

SAN ANTONIO -- Jason Terry hasn’t hesitated to discuss his lack of job security with his contract expiring at the end of the season.

PODCAST
Mavs coach Rick Carlisle makes his weekly appearance on ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM's Galloway and Company, where he refuses to talk about his contract situation but does provide insight on Kelenna Azubuike. Listen

Mavs coach Rick Carlisle, on the other hand, refuses to touch the topic of his contract nearing its end.

“I’m not going to talk about my contract situation,” Carlisle said Friday afternoon on ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM’s Galloway and Company, staying consistent with his policy on the matter. “We’ve got games to win. We’ve got a locker room full of free agents and a bunch of guys that I have such great respect and gratitude for. Right now, we’re in a foxhole fighting for our lives. The coach talking about his contract situation is not appropriate.”

Mavs president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson is on record saying Carlisle won’t be leaving the Mavs anytime soon.

However, there is already media buzz in Portland about trying to pry Carlisle away from the Mavs. Carlisle enjoyed his time as a Trail Blazers assistant early in his coaching career, and he’d have a young franchise player to work with in LaMarcus Aldridge. The Knicks job could be attractive to Carlisle due to the superstar talent in place along with Tyson Chandler’s leadership. And the Clippers job, which isn’t open yet, is certainly intriguing.

Then again, there’s the possibility that Mavs owner Mark Cuban and Carlisle have already agreed on a new contract but decided to delay making it official until the season is over. As Carlisle said, making the coach’s contract an issue on a defending championship team full of pending free agents isn’t appropriate.

DALLAS -- The Dallas Mavericks believe they can make another playoff run this season, but the primary reason they did nothing before the trade deadline was to preserve their potential to create significant room under the salary cap this summer.

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Mavs GM Donnie Nelson comments on why the Mavs didn't make a move at the trade deadline, how much the team misses Delonte West and more. Listen

“It’s a position we haven’t been in recently,” president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson said. “This gives us an opportunity to see if we can’t get out there and land a big fish.”

Nelson didn’t dare name names, not wanting to deal David Stern’s consequences for tampering, but there’s only one really big fish expected to be in the free-agent market after Dwight Howard committed to stay in Orlando one more season. That’s perennial All-Star point guard Deron Williams, the native of nearby The Colony whose interest in playing for his hometown team is one of the NBA’s worst-kept secrets.

Nelson danced around a question about Howard’s decision to waive the option to become a free agent this season, offering a politically correct answer.

“At the end of the day, I think it’s a good thing for basketball,” Nelson said. “As a general manager, I think continuity is good for teams.”

Sure, continuity is good for teams unless they have a chance to land a superstar in his prime. That’s the Mavs’ preference this summer.