Dallas Mavericks: No Plan to Meet with Howard

The Dallas Mavericks will apparently not be pursuing the services of Dwight Howard early on as they have aimed the free agency period in a different direction.

The Dallas Mavericks seem to have there free agency pitch ready and have zeroed in on their top two choices in the free agent class. Hassan Whiteside and Mike Conley have both reportedly accepted face-to-face meetings with the Dallas Mavericks early in the free agency period.

This is good news for the Mavs as they have had trouble signing the big name free agents over the past several years, but also has some of the more skeptical fans wondering what we don’t know. The problem with setting our sights so exclusively on these big names is that we miss out on the opportunity to meet with the next level of options.

To help understand that issue, we bring in Dwight Howard. Howard was linked to the Mavericks early on after the Houston Rockets frustrations caused him to opt out of his final year, leaving Dallas as a likely landing spot. This seemed like a reasonable enough union as Dallas needed a center and Dwight fit the build only years after being heavily recruited by the Mavs only to end up in LA.

However, we are learning today that Dwight is not even planning on meeting with the Mavericks at all and no word has been spoken at all on whether Dallas is even interested. It seems unlikely that a high caliber center that could’ve ended in Dallas isn’t even being pursued.

This leaves me to come to one of two conclusions for the Dallas management and recruiting team:

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1.) The Mavericks know something about these two free agents (namely Hassan Whiteside) that we do not know in the general public.

I personally am hoping that this is what is going on here. The Mavericks are in need of a boost and if we strike out on our first tier, we may be striking out on the second tier as well. I expect management knows this already.

We have a history of putting a team together on the fly so truthfully, anything they know could be very minimal but they are showing devotion to the names they are most interested in and saying, “We don’t want anyone else.”

Eddie Sefko tweeted today about Whiteside to give us a little more hope on this option.

2.) The Dallas Mavericks are not covering all the bases.

It seems highly unlikely that the Mavericks wouldn’t even pursue Dwight and tell him something along the lines of, “Hey, we are going after this guy but we also know you would be a great fit in Dallas. Do you have any interest?”

If we do this, it leaves our options open a little bit or, even if Dwight takes offense to that, it shows that we were at least willing to try and talk him into it if Whiteside decides to stay in Miami. Plus, Hassan has made it known that he intends to come to a decision on the 1st of July, meaning that we could know very early whether we got him or missed out on him.

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In the end, it is impossible to predict exactly what is going to happen in this year’s free agency scramble. The Mavericks could end up with one of the more stacked teams in the league or could be bottom-feeders with a lottery pick next year. It all comes down to the next few weeks.