Mavericks to meet with Greg Oden

According to Marc Stein, Greg Oden is in Vegas to meet with Dallas, New Orleans and Sacramento. Along with the earlier rumors that the Heat and Spurs were the front-runners for Oden's services, that would make 5 teams in pursuit. The good news is that none of those teams have an enormous amount of cap space. The bad news is that the Mavericks are considerably third best, at this point.

Oden's story is well known. Once drafted ahead of Kevin Durant, Oden is now 25 and hasn't played since December 2009. He played well that season, averaging 11 and 8.5 over 24 minutes in 21 games for the Blazers as a 22-year old. However, he's coming off three microfracture knee surgeries since he last stepped on the court.

It's unclear how good Oden still is, how ready he is, what kind of money and years he's been offered or expects and whether the fairly cautious Mavs even have a real chance. But, at least, they're doing their due diligence.

The meeting is scheduled for late today. If the Heat are indeed one of the front runners, the salary number in question must be some sort of exception, given their large salary cap figure.