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Report: Knicks tried to lure Ndour back after he agreed to deal with Mavericks

Jack Arent / National Basketball Association / Getty

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The New York Knicks didn't like the feeling of having less Ndour, so they tried fruitlessly to bring back Mo Ndour.

Ndour, a summer league standout, signed with the Dallas Mavericks last week, landing a contract that's reportedly fully guaranteed for 2015-16 at above the league minimum, one heck of a deal for an undrafted free agent. After watching Ndour win hearts in Las Vegas - averaging 9.6 points, 4.8 rebounds, and two blocks - Dallas offered the Senegalese power forward a $600,000 guarantee, according to Marc Berman of the New York Post.

To that point, the Knicks, with whom Ndour played in Vegas, had offered less than $200,000 in guaranteed money, thinking their offseason flier, and Ndour's New York roots, would be enough to keep him in Gotham. For a player on the NBA fringes weeks ago, that's a lot of guaranteed money to pass up on, and so Ndour cashed in with a chance to make the Dallas roster.

It was when New York knew they were losing Ndour that they got aggressive, triying to get Ndour to break his agreement, but Ndour kept his word - Mark Cuban's heart probably couldn't have taken another breaking - and the Knicks' only chance of getting Ndour back now is if Dallas cuts him ahead of the season.

While it may seem strange for a bidding war to occur for a 23-year-old who was hardly on the draft radar in June, players with a 7-foot-4 wingpsan, a 9-foot-1 standing reach, great energy, and an outside shot are hard to come by. With plenty of room to develop further - he played just two years of NCAA ball after playing two junior college seasons - he's exactly the type of low-risk, high-reward prospect a team like the Knicks should be taking a flier on at the end of their roster.

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