Dirk Nowitzki pre-2013 draft interview quoteboard

On what the Mavericks are looking for in the draft: "Really, I'm not sure what type of players we're looking at. We've got five guys under contract so we need help left and right. We need a point guard, we could definitely use some shooting, we could use some athletes on the wings, we need some bigs. Honestly, if you look at the draft, it doesn't have one star player but it's deep enough where you can find something...where they'll come in and be a solid player. I guess Cubes has been rumored to be looking to trade down and...I guess it's something we'll find out here in the next few hours, but I'm exciting to go through the process and see what happens."

On his impact in the war room tonight: "It's not like today I'm going to make decisions in this room. It's not like I've watched enough college to really make an educated decision but I just want to go through the whole process and see what's going on, have some pizza and talk some hoops. I don't watch enough college to really have an insight on some of these guys, I only know a few players. I watched March Madness but that's about as far as my college hoops knowledge goes. I watched some of the pre-draft workouts we had -- there's some interesting players so we'll see what route they're gonna go."

On German draft prospect Dennis Schroeder: "I don't know much about him at all even though he grew up in Germany. Every time I played for the [German] national team, he was too young and so we never played together on that national team level. This year, I heard about him right before the hoop summit. I caught one quarter [of the Summit] of that and he looked interesting to me and when I heard he was coming here I was excited, I wanted to meet him, I wanted to see his work-out, and I was impressed how he handled everything, how he played. I think he's got good range, a good drive to the basket. We talked afterwards for like 45 minutes, he had some questions, gave him my phone number, if there's anything ever he can call me up, so I think this is an exciting day for him, and I wish him nothing but luck wherever he might be."

On the free agent: "I'll be here. ... I can go anywhere, if I'm included in that, I'm more than happy to go. We want to get better, it's a big summer, we've been saying it all year long. The time's here to make some moves, we only have five guys or six guys under contract so we got a lot of work to do. There's a lot of options, a lot of possibilities, there are guys out there who are interesting."

On meeting with a free agent: "You'll have to talk to Mark and Donnie ... I'll probably get the last minute text, 'do you want to go, do you want to jump in?", and I'll go."

On Dwight: "I reached out to him and told him we'd love to have him. That's really about it, it's not like we call each other every day, I didn't write him a letter, we just had a little phone contact. That was about it."

On Dwight's response: "He's doing well. I guess he's just weighing out his options, he didn't really say anything that was newsworthy. I'm sure he's got a couple meetings set up for whenever that might be in early July, hopefully we're one of those teams and we'll go from there."

On Dwight's game: "When he's healthy, he's one of the most dominant big men in the league. He showed it in the end of the season when he was right what he could still do, he can dominate on both ends of the floor if he feels healthy, he can still use his athleticism. He's a beast at both ends of the floor so I'd love to play with a guy who can get the ball in the post and just be out there spreading the floor, on defense a guy protecting the rim like that is a luxury. We'd love to have him, but so would all the other teams with cap room, with is a few, so we'll just wait and see what happens."

On the sales pitch to free agents: "Sales pitch hasn't changed much [from past years], we're a great organization with a great owner and a great coach. We got cap room, and when I come off [contract is up] next year we'll have even more cap room to get better. Fans are are part of it, the sell-out streak, it's part of the city, it's a great city to live in. No state taxes and all that."

On next week feeling like a 'moment of truth' or not: "We can't place all of our eggs in one basket. We need to have multiple things going, so if Dwight or whoever says no we gotta have some other options. We can't get too excited off of one thing. I think the whole eight, nine one-year [contract] players thing didn't work out, I think that's pretty obvious, and I don't think that's the route we're going to go again. If the top free agents decide they're not going to come here, we got to find a way to get better with some of the second-tier guys, even though there's still a lot of good players out there. Let's say Dwight doesn't come here, we can still find a way to be better and be a playoff team and have a good summer, so we just have to have a plan."

On how patient Dirk is in rebuilding the team: "One year out of the playoffs to me is already one year too many, it's been a tough two years right after we won it so I'd love to get back in the playoffs with whoever is here or ends up here, we'll see. Being patient in sports is tough, especially when you're my age. I just turned 35 and I'd love to compete at the highest level the last couple of years so yeah, like I said, the one year deals didn't work out, and now we got to plan and there are some good players out there who can definitely help us make the playoffs and play in June."

On potentially trading Shawn Marion: "That's something that we'll cross that bridge when we get there, if Dwight says he'd love to come and love to be here and this is where he wants to play, then that's something we'll have to address then. Now, I don't know if we have to address that. I love playing with all my championship teammates, we had a great team, great chemistry, I was sad seeing all of them go. It wouldn't be the same, really, if we parted way with 'Trix. We're the same age, we almost came into the league together, we won the ring together, so it's been a great ride together and we'll see how long we can take it."

On potential free agent targets: "I think there's a bunch of good players out there, I don't know who you consider second tier and third tier, but there's some good players. If you look at guys, [Andre] Iguodala or [Al] Jefferson, Brandon Jennings or Monta Ellis, a lot of players who are good who maybe aren't quite all the way superstars, but if you have enough good players, like the Denver concept showed last years, they didn't have one star player, but they had a bunch of really good players and I think if Gallinari doesn't get injured, they would have advanced a lot deeper. That's where we're at if we can't get a top, top superstar we've still got to find a way to be really good."

On where Dirk sees himself when he's done in the league: "I'm not sure if I'm made for TV, my face is more made for radio with Cooperstein, who also has a face for radio [ed. note: lots of laughter at that one]. Not sure, not sure, I think Cubes would love to keep me around after being with this franchise for so long so we'll wait and see what happens."