Dirk Nowitzki was part of the star-studded free agent class this summer, though his name didn’t make headlines because it was widely-known that he wasn’t going anywhere.
As expected all along, Dirk re-upped with Dallas at a discount, choosing a three-year deal for $25 million in order to give the team some salary cap relief so they could add some talent around him.
Much of those dollars went to Chandler Parsons in free agency, who the Mavericks stole away from the Rockets by giving him an offer sheet worth in excess of $46 million over three years. And Dirk expects him to spend at least some of it feeding his new teammates.
From Tim MacMahon of ESPN Dallas:“I told him every dinner on the road this year is on him,” Nowitzki said, “because it’s my money anyway.”
Parsons, who considers Nowitzki’s hater humor to be hilarious, fully appreciates the sacrifice the face of the franchise made to make room for him under the Mavs’ salary cap.
“He’s the ultimate teammate,” Parsons said. “I’m very humbled and glad that he did that, because I wanted to be here and I wanted to play here, and I wanted to play with him. That just shows you how much he wants to win. He’ll take that big of a pay cut to try to bring a guy like me to try to help him win a championship.”Nowitzki isn’t wrong, obviously, because he very easily could have commanded most of what Parsons was paid -- just ask Kobe Bryant about that. But after taking home over $200 million in career earnings, he was willing to leave some on the table -- and with Parsons being the beneficiary of that, Dirk expects to be paid back at least a small amount for his sacrifice.