Dallas Mavericks: What to Make of Chandler Parsons

Chandler Parsons is a hot topic in the NBA world right now and most Dallas Mavericks fans are either worried he will leave or we will overpay him.

The Dallas Mavericks are a week away from a free agency period where it seems our team is being thrown around with every single free agent on the market. This can cause some confusion for those trying to keep up (myself included) but Chandler Parsons has definitely dominated the Mavs news front the last few days.

Aside from his opting out of the current contract (not really news), rumors also surfaced that Mark Cuban had spoken to CP about opting back in to his last year on contract in what I can only assume was a 5-year plan of sorts for the Mavs small forward.

The conversation clearly did not work as Parsons is well aware of the demand for an above average wing in the league right now. Sources all over sports have been declaring that there will be teams ready to throw max money at Parsons, but have yet to really say which teams those are.

Reports then surfaced today (per@SkinWade) that Chandler Parsons will not be receiving a max offer sheet from Dallas as they seek for what is known commonly as ‘shared sacrifice’ from their free agents, all based around Dirk Nowitzki. This idea sounds great on paper, but finding players to buy into it is a rarity outside of San Antonio.

To clarify the statements above, there is no guarantee that Dallas will not match a max deal from another team for Parsons. As of right now they are hopeful for other very talented players such as Mike Conley, Hassan Whiteside, Dwight Howard, and others. Because of this, they would not be willing to make that kind of offer.

However, if others drop out of the race, it makes more sense for Dallas to overpay Parsons and keep him around than to let him walk just because we don’t value him as highly as others. If the money is there, we will spend it to keep Dirk happy.

That being said, if Parsons does get a max offer sheet from someone like Orlando or Miami and we decide not to match it, this probably means one of a few different things.

The most likely is that we are in advanced talks with either Conley, Whiteside, or both. Probably the two highest valued players in free agency this year for Dallas, we will do all that we can to bring them on.

In that case, our options at small forward begin to dwindle. The only real valuable free agents on the market outside of Kevin Durant and Lebron James (neither of which are coming) are Harrison Barnes and Nicolas Batum. To max out both Whiteside and Conley means we cannot afford either of those players.

So we could start Anderson at the 3 in this case or we could attempt a sign and trade with the Magic to bring in a guy like Evan Fournier. Again, this is all complete speculation but these are options the Mavericks could pursue. We have to be ready for every possibility here.

Next: Big Trades Help the Conley to Dallas Chances

In the end, it is far too early to predict exactly what is going to happen between the Mavericks and Chandler Parsons, but just know that there are a lot of options out there for us. Stay up to date with everything Dallas Mavericks and free agency with us here over the next few weeks.