The Mavericks have agreed to a multiyear deal with shooting guard O.J. Mayo. (Glenn James/NBAE/Getty Images)

After piecing together a competitive roster in a rapid-fire, 24-hour span last week, the Mavericks capped their solid consolation prize of a team by agreeing to a multiyear contract with shooting guard O.J. Mayo on Monday. Despite missing out on point guard Deron Williams and allowing guards Jason Terry and Jason Kidd to depart as free agents, Dallas has now responded by adding Mayo, power forward Elton Brand, center Chris Kaman and point guard Darren Collison.

Dallas made the deal for Mayo by using its remaining cap space after winning the amnesty auction for Brand. The Mavs could also devote their available cap exception or a limited form of Larry Bird Rights to re-sign Delonte West, who would serve as a backup point guard to Collison on a roster that’s suddenly loaded with wing players.

For now, Mayo joins a crowded two-guard rotation that includes Roddy Beaubois, Dominique Jones, Vince Carter, Dahntay Jones and potentially West. Three of those players, Beaubois, Dominique Jones and West, can function as point guards in stretches to spell Collison. West was probably Dallas’ best off-the-bounce creator last season, and Dominique Jones has been working on his passing skills at the Las Vegas summer league.

The other shooting guards, Carter and Dahntay Jones, can serve as small forwards behind Shawn Marion. Carter filled that role quite a bit last season, even drawing Kevin Durant as a defensive assignment for parts of the Thunder’s first-round sweep of the Mavs. Jae Crowder, the 34th pick in last month’s draft, may also get a crack at small forward minutes for Dallas, particularly given that Carter and Dahntay Jones play more often as shooting guards.

Mayo hasn’t developed into anything close to a star in his four-year career, but he’s a very good complementary player who might possess the best two-way combination of skills among this group. He’s an above-average three-point shooter who has become deft at running around screens, Rip Hamilton-style, for catch-and-shoot and catch-and-drive opportunities. Dallas’ offense, so stagnant and perimeter-oriented last season, can use every bit of his youthful dynamism. The 24-year-old Mayo is also a feisty defender capable of challenging point guards, and he’s a decent passer for a wing player. Using him as a stopgap point guard has generally been ill-advised, but coach Rick Carlisle has enough options in Dallas to avoid such scenarios.

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Nicolas Batum is set for a big payday from either Minnesota or Portland. (Sam Forencich/NBAE via Getty Images)

Some thoughts on the latest moves around the league (and a quick word about Greg Oden) …

• Minnesota uses the amnesty provision on Darko Milicic, signs Nicolas Batum to four-year, $46.5 million offer sheet.

I’m late on this, since former Timberwolves forward Michael Beasley agreed to terms with the Suns more than a week ago, but let’s pour one out for the Beasley/Milicic two-man game. This was perhaps the most unwatchable two-man game in recent NBA history, a staple of former Timberwolves coach Kurt Rambis’ triangle offense that Rick Adelman quickly de-emphasized after taking over last season.

Alas: As ESPN.com’s John Hollinger has pointed out, the use of the amnesty provision on Milicic does not clear enough cap space for the Wolves to execute every move to which they have potentially committed themselves. That holds even if the Wolves follow the amnesty trigger by buying out Martell Webster and Brad Miller for the minimum amounts that their respective contracts allow. Minnesota has now promised nearly $12 million annually to Batum, $5 million next year to guard Brandon Roy and an unknown amount for Russian combo guard Alexey Shved. Even assuming a very conservative figure for Shved, an accomplished international player, all of these moves would put the team at least $4 million or $5 million above the cap, meaning another cost-cutting transaction would have to come if Portland lets Batum walk to Minnesota.

Speaking of which: Once Batum’s offer sheet is delivered to the league office, NBA rules prohibit the restricted free agent’s involvement in a sign-and-trade. Minnesota and Portland had discussed  a sign-and-trade armistice that might have included draft picks and the participation of Chicago, which would have dealt Kyle Korver and his non-guaranteed deal to the Trail Blazers. Those talks are dead now, provided the offer sheet has been submitted to the league.

I’ve written at length about Minnesota’s lack of production on the wing last season, but, holy cow, have the Wolves gone all-out to address that problem in free agency. They started by dealing the 18th pick in last month’s draft to Houston for Chase Budinger and have followed that by agreeing to deals with Roy, Shved and now Batum. That’s four potential new wing players. If they land all of them, Adelman will have some major minutes juggling to do and the Wolves will have spent their way (for now) close to the projected 2013-14 cap, affecting their ability to upgrade via free agency next summer. That doesn’t even take into account center Nikola Pekovic’s cap hold, but the Wolves could cut money a year from now by making the second season of Roy’s deal a team option and parting ways with a few non-performers, including swingman Wes Johnson, the No. 4 pick in the 2010 draft.

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Dwight Howard’s potential move to Brooklyn is on hold again. (Derick E. Hingle/US Presswire)

Dwight Howard is a punch line now. In almost any conversation about the Magic center with sports fans, interviewers or even basketball writers, the first or second question will be some version of: Has Howard replaced LeBron James as the NBA’s villain? Or: Hasn’t Howard dealt with this even worse than James handled The Decision?

And you can understand why. The situation has hit rock bottom at least a half-dozen times, culminating (for now) with Orlando’s announcement on Wednesday that trade talks with Brooklyn about Howard had stalled. They’re not dead, of course; they never will be until Howard is actually traded or signs a new contract with the Magic, the latter an outcome that still feels unthinkable given all that has happened.

But the Nets have shifted their attention to re-signing power forward Kris Humphries and center Brook Lopez, who agreed to a four-year, $61 million contract on Wednesday. Under league rules, those two would-be sign-and-trade cogs in the blown-up Howard deal will be off the trade market for months (Humphries isn’t likely to be trade-eligible until Dec. 15 and Lopez won’t be until Jan. 15). If Humphries receives a big-money, multiyear deal, it will be even harder for the capped-out Nets to find a taker for him in any theoretical Howard trade during the season.

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Sixth Man Award runner-up Lou Williams led the Sixers in scoring at 14.9 points in 26.3 minutes. (Dennis Wierzbicki/US Presswire)

As the entire league waits for resolution to the interminable Dwight Howard saga, here’s a roundup of analysis on some smaller deals:

• The Hawks sign Lou Williams for the mid-level exception.

Getting Williams, still just 25, at this price is good value, especially because it doesn’t eat up enough of Atlanta’s 2013 cap space to jeopardize any grand plan for a dual Chris Paul/Howard splash next summer. Forward-center Al Horford and John Jenkins, the Hawks’ first-round pick in last month’s draft, are the only players with guaranteed money on the books for the 2013-14 season. It won’t be quite that easy, though, as cap holds for point guard Jeff Teague and power forward Josh Smith will eat up about $22 million of Atlanta’s cap space, theoretically eliminating the possibility of that Paul/Howard double-whammy; those two stars are eligible for a combined first-year maximum salary of about $39.2 million, meaning the Hawks will have to trim their cap number to about $20 million to sign both into cap space.

For the Hawks to add both stars will require some work because Horford’s 2013-14 salary and Smith’s cap hold total about $28 million. Ditching Smith presumably isn’t an option because he’s close with Howard, his former AAU teammate and longtime friend, and would thus serve as a lure for the two stars. Horford is as an attractive asset the Hawks could move if need be, and they could wipe away Teague’s cap hold in a minute if they are confident in signing Paul to play the same position.

Paying Williams $5.3 million in 2013-14 doesn’t move the needle on any of this, really. It also gives the Hawks a young, productive player who can fill Joe Johnson’s spot at shooting guard and can work as backup point guard if the Hawks flip Devin Harris or Teague midseason for an extra asset. (Note: Atlanta did receive point guard Jordan Farmar in the Johnson deal, but he appears headed for a buyout and a new contract to play in Turkey.)

To review: Atlanta has basically traded Joe Johnson and Marvin Williams on the wing for Lou Williams, DeShawn Stevenson, Anthony Morrow, Jenkins and a potential dose of Harris as part of lineups with two point guards. They may also try to find another wing on a veteran’s minimum deal, as they did last season with Willie Green and Tracy McGrady.

The Hawks have lost some major size in this meta-transaction, and with it some of the versatility they had to play big lineups, small lineups and lineups that simultaneously played big and small — with Johnson as a bully shooting guard and Horford as the rangy center. That will hurt on both sides of the floor and on the glass, where Marvin Williams served as a solid rebounder on the wing.

But Lou Williams can replicate some of Johnson’s shot creation and add free throws that Johnson didn’t generate, Morrow provides elite shooting and Stevenson can defend a lot of small forwards. Also, Smith can shift to small forward when coach Larry Drew wants super-big lineups on the floor.

In other words: It shouldn’t surprise at all if the Hawks are again a solid playoff team, even amid all this turmoil. But that isn’t the end goal here, anymore.

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Tim Duncan’s presence on the floor transformed the Spurs’ defense from ordinary to among the 10 best in the NBA last season. (EPA/John G. Mabanglo/LANDOV)

The Spurs entered the offseason in a very similar position as the Celtics, only much closer to realistically contending for the title. The four straight losses to Oklahoma City linger around the perception of this team in a bad way, but three of those losses were close, and they came after the Spurs blitzed the NBA over the course of 35 games at a level we have rarely seen in the entire history of the league.

Those four losses, though, did give off the feel of one team figuring out another — by shifting Thabo Sefolosha onto Tony Parker, leveraging an athleticism advantage by defending the paint more aggressively and playing small more often against a team ill-equipped to punish Oklahoma City on the block. And the Thunder are only going to get better with experience. Still, The Spurs are close, and they have a few young and young-ish players — especially Kawhi Leonard and Tiago Splitter — who should continue to get better in their own right. And that’s why it’s not surprising San Antonio has essentially decided to run it back, agreeing to re-sign Tim Duncan to a three-year deal structured very much like the three-year, $34 million deal those Celtics game to Kevin Garnett ten long days ago, per Yahoo!’s Johnny Ludden.

That decision comes after the Spurs had decided to bring back Danny Green on a three-year, $12 million deal and dip into their mid-level exception to sign Boris Diaw to a two-year, $9.2 million contract. Ludden reports the Spurs have also come to terms with Nando De Colo, a French combo guard they drafted in 2009, and back-up point guard Patty Mills — moves that could make Gary Neal or Mills expendable on the trade market. All the moves taken together bring the Spurs right to the edge of the tax line, though with all the movable little contracts here, including DeJuan Blair’s non-guaranteed deal, sliding under the tax shouldn’t be too hard for San Antonio. Bringing back Duncan at his price could compromise the Spurs’ cap room next summer, but not fatally, and a lot can happen between now and then.

Duncan and Garnett handcuffed their teams by being so damn good at such an advanced NBA age. The Spurs and (especially) the Celtics had positioned themselves with cap room this summer, ready to move onto new eras in the history of their respective franchises. But Garnett and Duncan soaked up almost all of that cap room via charges, linked to their (giant) old salaries, that hang on a team’s books until that team renounces its rights to those outgoing free agents. And Duncan and Garnett played so well last season, on such lively legs, that they made it very hard for their teams to wipe away those cap charges and use their space to sign someone better. And so the other path made some sense for each: keep those holds on the books, stay over the cap, bring back most of the old gang on cheap, short-term deals and see what happens next season.

The ideal would be to stay in championship contention for 2012-13 while remaining flexible enough to hit the reset button, or something close to it, pretty quickly if things go sour. The Spurs remain in decent position to do that, with Manu Ginobili’s contract expiring after next season along with Stephen Jackson’s, and with the rest of these guys — Diaw, Green, etc. — coming back at lower prices than Boston’s Brandon Bass/Jeff Green/Jason Terry crew. Assuming an $11 million salary for Duncan in 2013-14, the Spurs could work their way to max-level cap space a year form now, though cap holds linked to Ginobili and Tiago Splitter will take up most of that space initially — just as Duncan’s hold would have in this free agency period. Tony Parker’s contract expires a year later and is only partially guaranteed for that 2014-15 season, so the Spurs could be in the same position again — with an attractive trade chip if need be. Read More…

Carmelo Anthony’s Knicks will need to be better offensively in order to contend next season against LeBron James’ Heat and other top teams. (Andrew Innerarity/Reuters)

For all of the Knicks’ moves in increasing an already-expensive payroll, this team is still a total mystery. New York is an on-the-fly construction project that, in the big picture, has had very little time to work together and learn.

Until we get some answers about this group on both sides of the floor, it’s hard to picture New York’s core competing with Miami and Brooklyn, if the Nets manage to acquire Dwight Howard. For one, the Knicks — who have added point guard Jason Kidd and center Marcus Camby while retaining forward Steve Novak, shooting guard J.R. Smith and (presumably) point guard Jeremy Lin — are not done buying. They’ll try to get something for center Dan Gadzuric’s non-guaranteed deal, and they still have a form of Bird Rights on free agent Jared Jeffries, a valuable fourth big man behind center Tyson Chandler, Camby and power forward Amar’e Stoudemire (and perhaps Novak, if you’d like to classify him as a “big”). And we won’t see New York’s best wing defender, guard Iman Shumpert, until at least January, as he recovers from a torn ACL.

That’s the puzzling thing about this team, especially without Shumpert: The Knicks look bad, defensively, on paper. But they looked just as bad last season, with minus defenders (Carmelo Anthony and Stoudemire) at both forward spots, a bunch of guys splitting time at shooting guard and an untested second-year player in Lin manning the point. Despite all of that, New York ranked fifth in points allowed per possession and spent the entire season as one of the league’s stingiest defenses. Chandler was at the heart of that, talking to everyone and sliding all over the place to plug holes before they fully opened. The Defensive Player of the Year was so good that the Knicks managed to allow points only at a league-average rate even with Anthony and Stoudemire on the floor together.

It was the offense, bottom-10 almost all season despite all of the glittery names, that failed the Knicks. There were semi-productive streaks, but even those came with caveats. Linsanity was wonderful, but the Knicks scored only at a league-average rate and won mostly with defense in that stretch. They surged again late in the season when a back injury to Stoudemire forced them to shift a suddenly invigorated (on defense) Anthony to power forward.

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After posting career bests in scoring, rebounding, shooting and blocks last season, Roy Hibbert received a $58 million free-agent offer from Portland that the Pacers are expected to match. (AP)

On Monday came news that the Pacers will match the Blazers’ four-year, $58 million offer sheet for Roy Hibbert, a move that makes sense considering the scarcity of good two-way centers and creates all sorts of possibilities over the first 72 hours of official free agency this week in Portland and Indiana, per Mike Wells of the Indianapolis Star.

The Hibbert decision marks Indiana’s second free agency splurge of the month, with the Pacers already having agreed to a five-year, $40 million contract with George Hill. And depending on how Indiana chooses to time these transactions after league business resumes on July 11, the Pacers may yet be a major player for another mid-tier free agent — perhaps a shooting guard such as O.J. Mayo or Lou Williams, or a power forward (Carl Landry?) who could help fill Indiana’s thin big man rotation.

The timing is everything. The Pacers have 72 hours after midnight on July 11 to match Hibbert’s offer sheet. They could, in theory, wait that long, or longer, to make Hill’s deal official. During that waiting period, Hibbert and Hill would count for only about $10.3 million combined on Indiana’s cap sheet via charges, called cap holds, linked to their old salaries. Add those charges to the Pacers’ committed salary, and Indiana could have about $10 million in cap space to use over those hours — assuming the Pacers renounce their rights to Leandro Barbosa. If they’re nervous about Hill drawing interest elsewhere, they could make that contract official fast and still have about $6.5 million in cap space to use before matching on Hibbert. That number could jump a little bit if Dahntay Jones officially signs his player option right away. There’s also the possibility, reported first by David Aldridge of NBA.com, that Indiana negotiates an identical contract to the one Portland offered rather than forcing Hibbert to sign the offer sheet from Portland and then matching that offer sheet.

This may not amount to anything for the Pacers, of course. There are lots of moving parts, several other teams who can influence all these moving parts and no guarantee of finding anyone for that cap space. They may also just choose to lock up their own guys immediately and move along. It’s just a reminder that the Pacers are lean enough to maintain some flexibility while still retaining two core players. Heck, the Hill and Hibbert deals combined give Indiana only about $41 million in committed salary for 2013-14, raising the possibility of near-max level cap room again next summer — though cap holds for David West, Tyler Hansbrough and Darren Collison will eat up all that cap space at first.

Still, Indiana can overpay Hibbert just a bit without compromising its future, especially since none of the above West/Hansbrough/Collison trio are guaranteed core spots in that future.

Hibbert, of course, is the centerpiece of the team’s future at this point. He probably isn’t quite worth a near-max deal in cold calculating terms, but he’s a center who helps on both sides of the ball and doesn’t actively hurt his team in any way. Those are rare commodities, and they get compensated as such. The Pacers in the regular-season were a borderline elite team with Hibbert on the floor and a break-even one with him on the bench, and in the playoffs, the gap widened to the point of absurdity. Read More…

Ryan Anderson’s age and ability to put a charge into an offense convinced the Hornets to deal for him and hand him a $34 million contract. (AP)

Days before the draft, the Hornets opened up about $7 million of additional salary-cap space when they sent center Emeka Okafor and small forward Trevor Ariza to Washington for small forward Rashard Lewis’ partially guaranteed expiring contract (since bought out). Though the trade didn’t quite create enough room for a max-level free agent offer, it did loosen up things enough for New Orleans to pursue a solid veteran. And so on Sunday, the Hornets found their man: forward Ryan Anderson, acquired in a sign-and-trade for Gustavo Ayon on a contract that will pay him $34 million over four years, or $8.5 million per season, according to SI.com’s Sam Amick.

The deal still leaves the Hornets with about $4 million in cap room that they could use during the three days they have to match Phoenix’s offer sheet for shooting guard Eric Gordon, provided they renounces their rights to all of their other free agents — Carl Landry, Chris Kaman and Marco Belinelli. In a much trickier alternative, the Hornets could also keep those free agents on the books for a few days, stay over the cap, work to create a trade exception in a theoretical Eric Gordon sign-and-trade with Phoenix and fit Anderson into that exception. That would allow the Hornets to snag an asset low-priced asset from Phoenix and keep the mid-level exception in play.

Regardless, the Hornets have signed Anderson to the precise sort of contract (a deal in the $6 million to $10 million range for a non-star) that a growing number of NBA geeks would recommend avoiding. The Spurs, for instance, have signed one such contract by my count — the Richard Jefferson deal, later dumped on the Warriors — since the institution of an annual luxury tax in 2005. They traded George Hill for Kawhi Leonard precisely because they did not want to sign Hill, now 26, to the five-year, $40 million contract that the Pacers and the guard agreed to last week.

The Rockets, the NBA’s leading geeks, are certainly operating like a team that would prefer a combination of stars, expiring contracts and guys on rookie deals or minimum-level contracts, but even they are poised to snag Bulls restricted free-agent center Omer Asik on a contract in this exact range. The Thunder have one player in this salary range right now, center Kendrick Perkins, and he is already talked about around the league as a potential amnesty candidate. The Heat have two players nearly in this range, swingman Mike Miller and power forward Udonis Haslem, but they signed Miller via cap space, and they remain a close approximation of a team built on the stars-or-cheapies-only model.

But that is a hard model to execute in reality. League rules mitigate against it. Teaming up stars means tying up your cap space in them, and that, in turn, means the mid-level exception — right in this range — is the only easy way to beef up your roster with veteran talent. Larry Bird Rights, which allow teams to go over the cap when re-signing their own free agents, also create opportunities for these kind of deals.

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Guard Jamal Crawford (center) shot only 38.4 percent last season. (Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images)

It’s a testament to just how difficult team-building in the NBA is that, over the course of the last week, the Clippers traded for Lamar Odom and signed two wing players but still feel thin. The two wing players, of course, are guards Chauncey Billups and Jamal Crawford. The Clippers used their Bird Rights to reach a one-year, $4.3 million deal with Billups, and agreed to a four-year contract with Crawford, who will receive the full mid-level exception starting at $5 million a season. The latter is an extravagant contract for a 32-year-old, offense-first (and perhaps offense-only) player who shot 38 percent last season — but one that will reportedly be only partially guaranteed in the third and fourth seasons.

The two should be very useful for this particular team, but with 22-year-old guard Eric Bledsoe deserving more minutes, it’s sort of striking that the Clippers have spent their biggest chip — the mid-level- exception — to sign two wing players without finding a real defender at shooting guard or any plausible backup for Caron Butler at small forward. Odom gives them a backup big man whom opposing teams will actually have to pay attention to, but the Clippers still need at least one — and probably two — other backup bigs worthy of playing time. Remember: Despite his huge paycheck, the Clippers did not trust center DeAndre Jordan enough to play him for significant minutes in the fourth quarter of almost their entire playoff run. Instead, they opted for either Reggie Evans (likely headed to Brooklyn in a sign-and-trade deal on July 11) or Kenyon Martin for defensive purposes. Neither warranted any attention from defenses when L.A. had the ball. Jordan must progress in order for the Clippers to do the same.

Odom is a good defender when he’s engaged, but he wasn’t engaged in Dallas last season (to be generous). And the Billups/Crawford pairing obviously doesn’t represent an upgrade on defense, the Clippers’ weak link.

Los Angeles still has the biannual exception and the veteran’s minimum at its disposal, and it will presumably use them to fill out the roster. Free agents Matt Barnes, Mickael Pietrus and Marquis Daniels could all potentially be had for the minimum, though the price for Barnes might be higher. Danny Green is also out there, and the Spurs used him as a small forward at times.  The Clippers could also slot Ryan Gomes back into the rotation as a hybrid forward capable of spelling Butler and then use Bird Rights to bring back small forward Bobby Simmons or shooting guard Randy Foye.

But even then, the general point holds: After three splashy moves, the Clippers look much like the Clippers of last season: thin on the wing, vulnerable to strong and/or quick shooting guards and reliant on internal improvements from Blake Griffin and Jordan to bolster a defense that ranked 18th in points allowed per possession. Improvements should come in increments as Griffin and Jordan gain more experience learning the complexities of big-man NBA defense and furthering their chemistry together on that end.

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Lacking wing production, the Timberwolves struck a new deal with Brandon Roy and agreed on an offer sheet with Nicolas Batum. (NBAE/Getty Images)

The Timberwolves need production from someone, anyone, on the wing, which explains their two recent moves: They have tossed a giant sack with a dollar sign on it at small forward Nicolas Batum and have taken the rather extraordinary step of agreeing with shooting guard Brandon Roy on a two-year, $10.4 million contract.

Even assuming the Wolves buy out swingman Martell Webster for the minimum requirement of $600,000 and wipe away center Brad Miller’s entire contract because of his retirement, executing both the Batum and Roy moves would require the use of the amnesty provision on center Darko Milicic. That would not be necessary, however, if the Trail Blazers match the four-year, $45 million offer sheet for Batum — with bonuses that could drive the value to $50 million total — and the Wolves simply wait until after that to officially sign Roy.

(Let’s take a moment to appreciate the fact that this Batum deal could end up paying the 23-year-old Frenchman more per season than Josh Smith, Al Horford or Rajon Rondo earned last year.)

Let’s also take a moment to appreciate how skillfully Roy navigated the amnesty waiver process. The Blazers, of course, used the amnesty provision last December to wipe away the last four seasons of Roy’s monster contract. They still have to pay the 27-year-old the full $69 million they owe him for those seasons, but the money no longer counts against their cap. Under normal amnesty rules, Roy would have been placed into a special waiver wire pool through which teams under the salary cap could then bid on him. But the three-time All-Star retired, effectively sidestepping that process so that he can now re-enter the league as a true free agent, able to pick his own team.

The Wolves have gambled on Roy because of how disastrous their wing rotation was last season. The star of that show was Wesley Johnson, the No. 4 pick in the 2010 draft and the player Minnesota hopes is the last in a line of top-10 draft-day misses. That group includes Jonny Flynn, Corey Brewer and Randy Foye, the last of whom the Wolves famously acquired on draft day 2006 for … Brandon Roy. (In Minnesota’s defense, the Kevin Love/O.J. Mayo draft-day swap has been very successful, the opposite of the Roy/Foye deal.)

Young players go through growing pains, but Johnson’s performance last season was distressing. He turns 25 this weekend, so he’s not exactly a pup anymore, and he showed essentially zero average NBA skills in his second year. He shot just 39.8 percent overall and only 31 percent from three-point range. Despite playing in 65 of 66 games, he attempted 34 free throws and dished out 59 assists all season, numbers that reflect the lack of an attacking game off the dribble. And shooting guards who can’t shoot, attack or play lockdown defense don’t offer much, even if they are tall enough to shift to small forward to accommodate the rest of the roster.

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