DALLAS -- News that Marcus Camby was made available on Wednesday via his buyout from the Toronto Raptors did not faze the Dallas Mavericks. A source told FOX Sports that the club passed on the idea of Camby to instead lock down a deal for Samuel Dalembert.
Even with Dalembert, 32, who comes over from the Milwaukee Bucks with a solid reputation as a defensive center, the team isn't done adding bigs. Dallas will almost certainly add three or four more players to Dirk Nowitzki to fill the roster at power forward and center.
•Brandan Wright is an easy call. He and the Mavs are rumored to have settled on a two-year deal nearing $4 million, with Wright telling DB.com he's "sitting tight'' because his Early Bird rights here mean he will have to be signed after the Mavs have otherwise used up their cap room.
•We have no indication yet the Mavs are done trying to court Greg Oden. But it's also clear that their courtship with Dalembert includes the notion of him being the starting center.
The Mavs brought him to town to talk about a deal last week. There are still a variety of ways to acquire him and to fit him inside the cap; the current cap room is about $10,658,574, so among the simplest formulas is allowing perhaps $8 million to Monta Ellis, and $2.6 million to Dalembert.
•So does all this damage Bernard James' status? No, as we believe he is either on the team with a contract that became guaranteed on July 15 or he is on the team with the deadline-to-waive date having been moved to a later date (as first reported in this space on Monday).
As long as James is non-guaranteed, the Mavs can do the waive (preventing him from eating up cap room)-and-re-sign (to a minimum salary exception deal, which doesn't use cap room) process with him. Doing so would free up about $300,000 in cap room to use on another player between his waiver and the re-sign. If the Mavs don't need the extra $300,000 in cap room, they won't do the waive and re-sign.
This is among the reasons James was sent home from Las Vegas this week. If he gets injured in the summer league, the non-guaranteed becomes guaranteed-if-waived until he gets well.
The Mavs have been negotiating on several fronts and trying to maximize cap room, without knowing how much cap room they might need. That may clear up now that Dalembert is about to be in the fold. But they need to get all their cap-space deals lined up. Oden is still in the mix, Dalembert is about to be in the fold and James is simply involved in some contractual machinations.
