Will Chandler Parsons Go Home to Orlando this Offseason?

With the Dallas Mavericks losing a heartbreaker in Orlando on Friday night, some were left to wonder if Chandler Parsons visit home could become permanent over the offseason.

Once Chandler Parsons signed the offer sheet a couple of years ago, Dallas was ecstatic to welcome the young small forward from Houston to join the aging super star in Dirk Nowitzki. Some fans across Dallas was already anointing him the next “face of the Mavericks” for the following years to come.

Fast forwarding, Parsons is helping the Mavericks find their identity through the second half of the season as he looks to have come full circle from his offseason knee surgery. With the playoffs on everyone’s focus in Dallas, you can’t help to take a look at what this offseason could bring for the Mavericks and Parsons.

Parsons will most likely opt out of the third year on his deal and become an unrestricted free agent as the cap will look to jump over $20 million across the league. The Mavericks will then be face with a decision on how much money to hand out to the 27-year-old. Is he worth near max money?

So if the Dallas Mavericks are questioning over the summer on whether to give Parsons that big of a contract, is there a team that could out bid the Mavs a make a big run at him?

Enter the Orlando Magic.

Chandler Parsons is from the Orlando area and played high school basketball at Lake Howell in Winter Park, Florida. He even decided to stay put for college and joined the Florida Gators to go on to become a standout player in the SEC. When the Mavericks visited Orlando on Friday night, you could say Parsons had some friends and family in attendance….

Parsons clearly still has his fair share of support from his hometown. Something that I didn’t even know was how big of fans his family was of the Magic while he was growing up. I mean come on, Ma and Pa had season tickets.

But none of the Parsons-to-Orlando connection started up until the Magic made some cap saving moves before the deadline that has set them up for prime free agent pitches this offseason.

After signing youngster Tobias Harris to a four-year, $64 million dollar deal in the offseason, the Magic shed him to Detroit for the expiring contracts of Brandon Jennings and Ersan Ilyasova. To add to that, they unloaded the contract of Channing Frye to the Cleveland Cavaliers for basically nothing.

Now the Orlando Magic will have north of $40 million dollars in cap space this coming offseason.

The Magic will be sitting back with young players in Elfrid Payton and Victor Oladipo in the backcourt while being anchored down with Nikola Vucevic and Aaron Gordon in the front court. The blaring hole is obviously the small forward spot in the middle. Combine that with the fact that even if Parsons gets over $20 million , they will still have plenty of room to continue shopping on the market for pieces around him (maybe more Florida Gators in Joakim Noah and Al Horford).

Now I am in no way predicting a move to Orlando from Chandler Parsons, but simply think it will be worth monitoring for the hometown kid.

Next: Mavs Blow it in Orlando, Lose in OT

Unfortunately, if the Mavericks continue down the road they have been on over the past month, Orlando will become more and more attractive for the young Chandler Parsons.