A Look At What’s Next For The Dallas Mavericks

The Dallas Mavericks find themselves in the midst of another free agency failure. Here are some of their remaining options in a shrinking market.

It happened again. The Dallas Mavericks failed to land the star free agents that they were targeting and must now search through the remains of the free agency market to fill in the rest of their roster.

Since 2011, the franchise has gone through many changes. After winning a championship, they opted to blow up the team for a run at Deron Williams in 2012.

That ultimately failed when he chose the Brooklyn Nets, starting a stretch of five straight offseasons (and counting) where the Mavs would fail to land players like Dwight Howard, Carmelo Anthony, DeAndre Jordan and most recently, Hassan Whiteside and Mike Conley.

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Jordan’s near-deal with the Mavs in the summer of 2015 has proven to have the biggest impact of them all. With him, they had a legitimate shot at landing Kevin Durant this summer. Without him, however, they have found themselves struggling to sign players who aren’t even really considered superstars, or players to build a team around.

With no Whiteside or Conley, the Mavs had entertained the thought of making runs at players like Nicolas Batum, Kent Bazemore and Jeremy Lin, but they all committed to teams within the first day of free agency.

So what’s next for the Mavs?

They’ve already struck out on their top targets in another desperate attempt to get help for Dirk Nowitzki, and many of their other targets are quickly agreeing to new deals.

First things first, they have to take a look at who is left from their 2015-16 team. As first reported by Adrian Wojnarowski of the Vertical, Chandler Parsons has already accepted his max deal with the Memphis Grizzlies, and there wasn’t even a chance of him coming back to Dallas in the first place.

Despite that, the Mavs have reliable options in Deron Williams, Raymond Felton and David Lee, who are all still on the market. It seems unlikely that they re-sign Zaza Pachulia, but if the availability of quality centers continues to drop, they might have to take a chance.

As for the rest of the market, quality options such as Harrison Barnes (restricted) and Marvin Williams remain at the small forward position.

The point guard and center positions have already seen their prized possessions agree on new deals, meaning players like Ty Lawson, Mario Chalmers and Ian Mahinmi serve as some of the top remaining options.

The Mavs are reportedly in the hunt for Dwyane Wade, as he is thinking long and hard about leaving the Miami Heat, but it’s highly unlikely that anything happens with the Mavs since the sides basically hate each other after two heated NBA Finals series in 2006 and 2011.

The Mavs will also have to look into re-signing Dirk Nowitzki at some point in time. As he’s said before, he’s not into tanking, and he’ll surely get calls from contenders like the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers.

They’ll have to make sure they keep the team somewhat competitive, whether they go out and spend most of their $58 million of cap space on roster-fillers to make a well-rounded team, or if they decide to swing for the fences and pull off a big trade with the limited assets that they have.

There’s always the chance that a free agent pulls a “DeAndre Jordan” and goes back on his word to join a different team. With the moratorium period ending on July 7, there’s a solid week for early agreements to fall apart. While teams will definitely have that in the back of their minds, it most likely won’t happen — especially for some of the bigger names on the market.

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So in the end, what should the Mavs do?

There aren’t too many stars left on the market, and the Mavs don’t really have a chance at signing any of them. The front office could definitely look into trading for the help they need, since most of the impact players are gone, but they’ll have to be careful not to trade away valuable picks or young players — assets that will be important once their inevitable time period of rebuilding begins.

Attempting to sign the best players remaining on the market would get the team away from the bottom of the conference but not really anywhere near competing for a playoff spot.

If all else fails, they could sit down with Dirk and basically tell him that he’s free to go ring-chasing so they can start their period of tanking early, but I just don’t see the front office — or Dirk, for that matter — giving up that easily.

Their best option at the moment is to bring back key players like Deron Williams and Raymond Felton and go from there.

With the cap ceiling rising higher, just about every deal is going to look insane, but re-signing players that fit in before is a step in the right direction.

More hoops habit: Kevin Durant's Free Agency Destination Power Rankings

Maybe Mark Cuban and the rest of the front office sneaks in and grabs a star off the market. Maybe they swing a big trade that changes things. Those are certainly possibilities, but after the first day of free agency, one thing is obvious: The Dallas Mavericks are in trouble.