Cuban Gave Dirk Nowitzki More Money Than He Asked For

Dirk Nowitzki cashed in this offseason on a two-year, $50 million deal, but did he even ask for it?

Some people outside of Dallas speculated on if Nowitzki would return to Dallas or go to a top contender to chase another ring. Not only did Nowitzki return to Dallas, but he returned on a deal that would net him $50 million over the course of two years.

Dirk made it clear all along that he would finish his career with Dallas as long as they didn’t go the rebuilding route. Thankfully to Kevin Durant, Dallas was able to get their hands on Harrison Barnes and Andrew Bogut, thus putting together a competitive team for Dirk.

Now, after years of financial sacrifice to build a team, Nowitzki cashed in this offseason, but did he even ask for it?

Mavericks owner, Mark Cuban, was on Brown and Scoop from CBS when he opened up about the Nowitzki contract negotiations.

“Dirk wasn’t even in the country and people couldn’t even reach him when free agency started,” Cuban told CBS. “I basically told him, look, you tell me the price and it actually started lower. His agent said ‘how about this much’ and we said ‘we’ll have a little more money, we’ll give you more’ and as the numbers started getting bigger and bigger, it was like ‘what about this number?’ ‘We’ll give you more.’ Finally, it was like ‘this is what we got left, take it!’

This speaks volume once again about the character and person Dirk Nowitzki is, along with the respect level of Mark Cuban.

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The Mavs were going to go over the salary cap anyway, so Cuban decided to give the Big German the money he deserves. How many other owners would hand this amount of money to their legend out of pure respect and payment for their sacrifice?

I’m looking at you Pat Riley.