Dirk Nowitzki will take a pay cut in order to clear cap space for the Dallas Mavericks’ free agent pursuit of Dwight Howard or Chris Paul.

Nowitzki was asked if he has a number in mind.

“Not really. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” Nowitzki said. “It kind of depends on what team we can get, too. I’ve always said that (Mark) Cuban has taken care of me for a long, long time. Money isn’t something I play for. I want to compete. I want to win. We’ll play this year and hopefully have a great team and then I’ll come off the books. Then, we can all sit together again and see how many guys we can get and who is out there. Saying all of that, I think that’s something I haven’t really thought about yet in terms of an actual number. We’d love to be as competitive as we can be.”

Nowitzki plans to use his pay cut as a selling point to free agents.

“Yeah. Obviously, I’m not going to make $23 million again,” Nowitzki said. “I know that. I’m 36 next summer, so this is going to be my last year of making money like a franchise player. That gives us even more cap space next year. I’m sure it’s going to come up. We’ll see if that has an impact on anything or helps us bring anything. We’re obviously trying to sell the big picture and that’s one small part of it.”