Dirk Nowitzki has made hundreds of millions of dollars over his 18 campaigns in Dallas, and as a free agent this offseason, the Mavericks gave him a deal reportedly worth $50 million over two years to stay put.
Team owner Mark Cuban said that figure is higher than what the 7-foot German sought.
"I basically told him, look, you tell me the price and it actually started lower," the billionaire investor said on "Brown and Scoop" on CBS Radio's Play.it.
"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!'"
Cuban made a point to attach a team option to the second year of the contract to spare the 38-year-old of retirement speculation and to give his organization more flexibility.
"Dirk is ... just a good guy. He would hate going city to city to city and everyone asking him if he was going to retire because he has no intention of retiring after this year and, with the team option that we have, he gave us the flexibility that said, 'If we find somebody that we can send the money to that he likes, we all like, then let's do it and if not, let's give the money to Dirk again which I'm fine with too," Cuban explained.
Nowitzki averaged 18.3 points, 6.5 rebounds, and 1.8 assists in 31.5 minutes per game for the sixth-seeded Mavs in 2015-16. The club has since added Harrison Barnes, Andrew Bogut, Seth Curry, Nicolas Brussino, and Quincy Acy, while re-signing Deron Williams.
