Mark Cuban is an outspoken critic of the league’s lenient policies toward players who take part in international competitions, and while he allowed Chandler Parsons to participate in the run up to the FIBA World Cup, he made sure Parsons knew he’d prefer him to stay home.
“Yeah, he made that clear to me,” Parsons told reporters, including Jeff Caplan of NBA.com. “He did. He’s great … He obviously told me how he felt. He told the world how he felt about his guys playing for USA Basketball. But at the same time he understood it was something that I was really passionate about and it was something that I really wanted to do. So, I was planning on making the team and playing for the team. You take a risk of getting hurt anytime you step on the floor.”
There’s more from Parsons amid the latest on the Mavs, as we detail:
- Point guard Víctor Liz told reporters, including Rafael A. Faneyte of Curiosibasket, that the Mavericks have extended him an invitation to training camp, as Rafael A. Faneyte of Curiosibasket tweets (translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia). It’s not entirely clear whether Liz, who spent the last couple of weeks playing for the Dominican Republic in the FIBA World Cup, has worked out a deal to accept the invitation and join the Dallas roster.
- Parsons says he believes the Mavs caught the Rockets off guard with the size of the offer sheet, worth more than $46MM over three years, that the Mavs made to him, as Caplan also notes in his piece. “Give Mark credit and my agency credit, they put up a contract that was pretty tough for them to match and put them in a tough situation to make a hard decision,” Parsons said. “They did what they thought was best for their organization.”
- Ricky Ledo is entering the last fully guaranteed season of his contract, but Scott Rafferty of Ridiculous Upside believes he’s better suited to spend much of the coming season on D-League assignment, as he did last year, than on the Mavs bench.