Caron Butler’s future with the Dallas Mavericks starting to look shaky: NBA Report
The ultimate goal for the NBA Champions, Dallas Mavericks next season will be to defend the title. In order to do that, the NBA franchise needs to ensure that they retain most players from the championship line-up, if not all of them.
The problem for them is that six player from the championship winning team will become free agents in few days. The list includes Tyson Chandler, Caron Butler, Jose Juan Barea, DeShawn Stevenson, Brian Cardinal and Alexix Ajinca. And, with a strict policy for the salary cap space in place in the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, Dallas Mavericks won’t be able to retain all of the six players.
In fact, it will be very difficult to even re-sign all of the four more accomplished options in Chandler, Butler, Barea and Stevenson.
Tyson Chandler, at this point is the odds on favourite to be re-signed by the Mavericks, but if that happens, it would mean curtains for Caron Butler. The 31-year-old small forward was injured for the major part of the last regular season and was not able to feature in the post season journey as well.
In only 29 games last season, he averaged 15.0 points and 4.1 rebounds per game and as such, even though he is an established player, the Mavs would most probably let him go. The initial indication comes from the fact that he has not been contacted yet.
On the positive side though, none of the free agents have been contacted so far, not even Chandler. According to Mark Cuban, the owner of the franchise, the reason is the new CBA rule;
"We are going through and digesting all the new rules, and waiting on others. Once everything is in place we will have a far better idea on what we can and can't do. In the meanwhile, we certainly are going to be talking to everyone's agent." Cuban stated recently.
There is no doubt that Caron Butler has experience and great basketball skills. However, he has never played all 82 games in his 9-year NBA career due to continuous struggle with the injuries. A shortened 2011-2012 season might help him out, but given the ordeal that the Mavs find themselves in, that season might be with another team.
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