Chandler Parsons will be a free agent this year and until now, the assumption has been that the Dallas Mavericks will re-sign the versatile forward. While that's still the mostly likely outcome, ESPN's Tim MacMahon says that it's too soon to count out to Orlando Magic, Parsons' hometown team who will have the cap space to sign two max free agents this offseason.
The Magic will "aggressively" pursue Parsons, MacMahon writes, among a litany of teams interested in the 27-year-old. But given their cap space, the nostalgia effect and other reasons, that might be the biggest danger to the Mavericks' re-signing him.
To do that, there's no doubt the Mavericks will have to give him the max, which comes in at about $22.5 million for Parsons next year. Although Cuban has shown nothing to indicate he'll hesitate doing that, there is a strange dynamic at play with Rick Carlisle, who has occasionally sat Parsons at strange times as he continues to recover from hybrid microfracture surgery from last May. Carlisle says he believes in Parsons going forward, but his actions don't always seem to support that, and Parsons has the same misgivings.
Look, I'd still put the odds very high that Dallas retains Parsons this summer. He has great relationships with Dirk, with Cuban and with Carlisle, even if he doesn't always see eye to eye with his head coach. But that dynamic will be the most important storyline down the stretch of the season for Dallas, because it might determine whether Parsons stays or goes.