Dallas Retains Brendan Haywood

As seems to be the case almost every season, the Dallas Mavericks continued their long-standing tradition of signing a center to a lucrative contract. This year, the deal goes to Brendan Haywood (number 16 on the Big Board) in the form of a 6 year, $55 million contract. Haywood came over in a mid-season trade with Washington and was a bit unpredictable, mostly due to coach Rick Carlisle who never seemed to figure out how to best use the enigmatic center. With a big contract and a full year to work with, however, the idea is he'll be a much more valued player. A lot of the critics have joked about the Mavericks overpaying Haywood to which I have two counterpoints:

1.) $55 million, at least $11 of which is not guaranteed (meaning this is really a 5 year, $44 million deal), is not much of an overpay for top 10 center. And that is what Haywood is. Dwight Howard, Yao Ming, Andrew Bogut, Chris Kaman, Andrew Bynum when he's healthy, and possibly Al Horford and Nene (not really centers) are the only guys you can definitely say are better than Haywood at this point.
2.) When a team like the Mavericks, the Lakers, the Celtics, etc. spend loads to money to wrap up their own free agents, the money doesn't matter. The Mavs will never be under the salary cap in the Dirk era. Ever. They will always be trying to add pieces to contend and therefore will never be in a position to sign the big name free agents outright. So it doesn't matter to Dallas to give Haywood this much money the way it would to Detroit, Toronto, etc.

Haywood is already the best center in the history of the Dallas franchise, which is a sad thing to admit. He's not the offensive weapon that the Mavs really need to pair with Dirk Nowitzki, but he is an incredible rim-defender and a guy with a great motor who runs the floor pretty well. For the Mavs, this is a start. There are still more moves to come, I believe, as they try to shore up another run at contention, but this combined with the Dirk signing is a great start.

Grade: B+