Just read the daily dime.
It specifically states the Mavs will NOT have cap space.
Edit: This is a terribly confusing and unrealistic article. Here's what it says: NOT insider:)
(Dallas cannot get far enough under the cap to make a max offer to a major free agent. Aside from the $47 million committed to Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Terry, Kidd and Shawn Marion, Quinton Ross has a $1.1 million player option for next season, and Matt Carroll has a cap-clogging $4.3 million salary for 2010-11, then two more seasons after that at $3.9 million and $3.5 million.)
So the Mavs will be ready to play ball with any team that stands to lose a max-level free agent (look no further than Toronto, where Texas-raised Chris Bosh resides tenuously), and Howard, Gooden, Barea and Singleton all are nice pieces.
And given the profound difference, demonstrated Sunday, between what the Mavericks and the Knicks have on their respective rosters, this MSG matinee mauling illustrated the relative positions of strength and weakness with which each team will enter the summer. Much of the focus around the NBA through the first half of the season has been on the cap space the Knicks, Heat and Nets have accumulated for the summer of 2010 for the likes of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Bosh and others, and the space Chicago is expected to create for this summer's free-agent bonanza. Nobody speaks about the Mavs much, but they will have the resources to go after Bosh, Amare Stoudemire, Rudy Gay, David Lee or others if they hang on to Dampier and Howard through the trade deadline and then decline to pick up both players' 2010-11 options.
So the Mavs could be a major sign-and-trade player in 2010 free agency -- if they stand relatively pat at the trading deadline. They're wrestling with the options, having already registered interest in Sacramento's Kevin Martin; and they are believed to be tracking the availability of Washington's Caron Butler and Philadelphia's Andre Iguodala. The problem with any trade-deadline move is that the Mavs would have to use Josh Howard for any of those guys and thus would take themselves out of the Bosh/LeBron/et al. sweepstakes.
Basically, Dallas has as much chance as any other over the cap team at 2010 free agency.
Essentially, whomever wrote this thinks Dallas is so awesome that a free agent would request to be signed and traded to Dallas and that such a team would be happy to get a re-signed Josh Howard, Gooden, Barea, and Singleton in return.
The only "resources" Dallas has is their willingness to go way over the cap.
Essentially, they are in the same boat as the Celtics in terms of possibilities, except I believe the Celtics have more picks to offer (didn't Dallas give theirs to get Kidd?) but that Howard is probably a little more wanted in a signand trade trade than Allen (thoug Howard is only 3 years younger).
