Nowitzki on Anthony: ‘We’d love to have him’

Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki told a Dallas radio station that he hopes the team goes after New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony, who reportedly intends to become a free agent July 1.

“If Carmelo would really love to come here, we’d love to have him,” Nowitzki told 105.3 The Fan.

Anthony can opt out of the final year of his contract this summer and file for free agency. The Knicks want to keep him but he plans to opt out of his deal, according to reports.

The Chicago Bulls and Houston Rockets are listed in reports as the top candidates to land Anthony, but the Mavericks could be a possible destination for him. They just have to create salary cap space.

Nowitzki said he is willing to make whatever necessary adjustments to his game to accommodate Anthony.

“Listen, I think I’ve showed over my 16 years that I can play with anybody,” Nowitzki said. “The only tough season I think we’ve had is when we had (Antawn) Jamison and Antoine Walker and myself who are all three kind of the same 4-men, but other than that I think I’ve shown over my career that I can play with anybody. I’ll adjust, whether I have to get out of the way or go to the corner more, post up, pass — I’ll do whatever, really, that needs to be done out there to win or for this franchise to be a winner.”

The Mavericks have demonstrated in the past they can create cap space to find free agents, but have not had success in landing significant ones in recent years.

“Cap space, obviously, hasn’t treated us nicely since the lockout year when we decided to go for cap space and didn’t really get the guys that we wanted,” Nowitzki said. “But that’s the risk you take if you have cap space. The free agent might decide to go elsewhere and that’s what happened so far. But we’re going to keep getting after it.

“There’s a lot of money free under the cap. Donnie (Nelson) and Mark (Cuban) are always trying to make this organization better, and we had a better year this year than we did the year before. I think playoffs were big again and we competed and it was great. But we want to get better so we’ll just have to wait and see what happens this summer.”

The Knicks can offer Anthony a free agent deal for up to five years and nearly $130 million. The most other teams can offer Anthony is four years and nearly $96 million.