Rick Carlisle is without a contract with the Mavericks for the 12-13 NBA season.
Donnie Nelson continues to insist Carlisle will be back next season, but Mark Cuban has declined to discuss the situation throughout the season and Dirk Nowitzki stopped short from publicly lobbying for his return.
“This team, this franchise obviously has a lot of decisions to make,” Nowitzki said. “That’s obvious. Rick had a great four years here obviously. He took us to the promised land with a team that probably nobody thought could do it. I think he found a good mix over the years of stressing defense a lot and giving (Jason) Kidd some movement, giving him some freedom on the offensive end. Sometimes he did a good job getting out of the way and just letting us play and if he saw things are not going that well, call some plays and kind of pull us back in.
“I thought over the four years, he tried to do a good job. We’ll have to wait and see what the decision is with him, but he did a great job and obviously led us to the promised land.”