FRIDAY, 7:01pm: The Mavs have officially signed Dalembert, the team announced in a press release.
THURSDAY, 2:03pm: Dalembert will ink a two-year, $7.5MM deal with the Mavs, tweets Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. According to Wojnarowski, the second year will only be partially guaranteed.
WEDNESDAY, 6:58pm: The Mavs have reached a verbal agreement on a deal with Samuel Dalembert, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com. Stein reported earlier this evening that the two sides were close to an accord. Dallas and Dalembert's representatives from Pinnacle Management are continuing to hammer out the final details of his contract, and presumably that includes the financial specifics. The Mavs appear to have about $3.3MM of cap space available, and they can also use their $2.652MM room exception.
GM Donnie Nelson and company have thought about adding Dalembert for years, believing him to be an ideal fit with power forward Dirk Nowitzki. Dalembert is best on the defensive end, where he's averaged 2.6 blocks per 36 minutes for his career. His rate last season was virtually the same, even though he saw spotty playing time in Milwaukee.
The Mavs made Dalembert their primary target after missing out on Dwight Howard and Andrew Bynum, but he's not the only free agent they've been eyeing. Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News wrote earlier today that the team was expected to reach an agreement to re-sign Brandan Wright once it struck a deal with Dalembert. The team would like to sign Greg Oden as well, and Dallas remains high on Bernard James, who agreed to postpone the deadline for the Mavs to decide whether to guarantee his contract for this coming season. The Mavs are also discussing a new deal with Devin Harris, who consented to call off his initial three-year, $9MM deal with the team after suffering a toe injury.