Back in July, Lance Stephenson turned down a contract offer from the Pacers and instead agreed to sign a three-year, $27 million deal with the Hornets. But according to his agent, he came thisclose to signing a two-year deal with the Mavericks prior to joining Charlotte's roster.
Bleacher Report just put together a piece detailing Stephenson's summer. And in it, they reveal that Stephenson verbally agreed to join the Mavs in mid-July. The only catch: The Mavs weren't going to be able to afford Stephenson if the Rockets failed to match the contract that Dallas had offered to Chandler Parsons. The Mavs assumed Houston would match it, but until they did, the only agreement that they could come to with Stephenson was a verbal one. And when the Rockets failed to match it? Parsons ended up in Dallas…and Stephenson had to look elsewhere for employment.
"It was a domino effect," Stephenson's agent Alberto Ebanks told BR. "Dallas did not think that Houston was going to let Parsons walk. Lance was very close to being a member of the Mavericks."
In the BR piece, Stephenson sounds happy about where he eventually landed. But it's kind of crazy to think that he could have been a Maverick right now if the Rockets had made a different decision with regards to Parsons.
[via Eye on Basketball]
