Five things to watch in the Dallas Mavericks’ off-season

1. Re-sign Dirk

The first domino the Mavs would like to fall as they regroup and bid to go further than the first round of the playoffs for the first time since 2011 is re-signing superstar forward Dirk Nowitzki. Nowitzki plans to opt out of the last year of his current contract, which would pay him $8.7 million next season. And his new contract will probably be a two-year deal with a player option for the second year. “There is not a player that I’ve been around that has his kind of winning software,”said Donnie Nelson, the team’s president of basketball operations. “He’s our Roger [Staubach], our Troy [Aikman], our Mike Modano, Nolan Ryan. That’s who he is, so he deserves the courtesy of the first sit-down.”

2. Dwight Howard factor

If the Mavs are serious about their quest to sign Houston Rockets free agent center Dwight Howard, they must quickly re-sign one of his best friends — Chandler Parsons. Parsons is opting out of the final year of a contract that will pay him $16 million next season. Parsons is known as a shrewd recruiter, but he won’t be doing any recruiting and helping the Mavericks acquire Howard if he’s not part of their organization. The Mavericks have to hope Howard doesn’t sign elsewhere before they come to terms with Nowitzki and Parsons.

3. Parsons’ value

The Mavericks have to figure out how much Chandler Parsons is really worth and how much they’re willing to pay him. He’s not the same Chandler Parsons who came from the Houston Rockets and signed a three-year, $46 million restricted free-agent contract with the Mavericks in the summer of 2014. This Chandler Parsons has been with the Mavericks for two seasons, and both seasons ended prematurely with a surgical procedure on his right knee. The Parsons camp obviously doesn’t think the back-to-back surgeries should affect his value on the market. The Mavs’ camp? “It’s definitely a concern, but that’s up to the doctors to deal with,” owner Mark Cuban said. “So yeah, it is a concern, but that’s why we have doctors and we’ll let them do their jobs.”

4. Justin Anderson’s upside

The off-season progress of forward Justin Anderson will be closely monitored. As a rookie, Anderson made the typical mistakes a first-year player makes early in the season. But when given the opportunity to play some extended, meaningful minutes later in the season, Anderson’s mistakes were reduced and his productivity was sky-high. The Mavericks were 7-2 with Anderson and his athleticism and activity in the starting lineup, and he was a starter when they made their late-season push for the playoffs. “He’ll be a lot better [next year],” Cuban said. “He’ll learn that when you get hit in the throat you stay on the ground and scream instead of getting up. He works hard, he’s a great kid and he’s got all the tools to be an All-Star.”

5. Roster moves

While injuries played a huge role in the Mavericks’ finishing this season with only a 42-40 record and the No. 6 seed in the Western Conference, that type of record is usually a recipe for the Mavericks to flip the roster yet again. Eight players on the roster weren’t with the team last season, and the Mavericks could have as many as six new players next season. “In terms of roster turnover, I’ve taken it on as a personal challenge each year to do the best I can possibly do with whatever our roster is, and we’ve had good rosters,” coach Rick Carlisle said. “This summer we’re going to have to work and make our roster even better.”

This story was originally published April 30, 2016 at 7:41 PM with the headline "Five things to watch in the Dallas Mavericks’ off-season."