Andre Igoudala was all but a Maverick until Dallas asked him to wait

The summer of 2013 is nearly a decade ago at this point and yet long time Dallas fans will tell you the sting of those post-championship free agency failures hurts just the same to this day.

In another instance of old history dredged up, Andre Igoudala explained his eventful 2013 free agency on today’s episode of Old Man and the Three. In the episode (starting at about the 55 minute mark) he walks us through how he went from being a Denver Nugget to being a member of the Golden State Warriors.

“I was actually going to go with Dallas. Dallas was the spot. I want to go play in Dallas” Igoudala says. He then goes on to talk about how he liked how the Mavericks take care of players who win championships before circling back to how Dwight Howard delayed things for everyone. “So Mark was like ‘this [Dwight Howard] is a generational talent’, which Dwight is. people don’t put enough respect on Dwight’s name. They were like we have to give Dwight respect and give him a meeting because we are now on his list.”

Igoudala also stated that prior to the Howard delay, he’d told Michael Finley, someone he’d had a long time relationship with, “I’m in” as far as joining the Mavericks.

The delay in taking a meeting with Dwight Howard resulted in the Warriors putting together a three team sign-and-trade for Igoudala.

This is just one of many things in the early 2010’s that contributed to the slow decline of the Mavericks. Between this story and the well known Deron Williams fiasco in the summer of 2012, there’s just a lot to look back on and wonder “what if”.

Hopefully, the new voices in the Dallas front office will make a difference moving forward and Dallas won’t always go for the big fish.