Dallas Mavericks Rumors: Will Tyson Chandler Leave Dallas During Free Agency?

With a little more than one week to go before the start of free agency in the NBA, teams are looking into multiple possibilities as to who to target and who to take a wait-and-see approach on. Every year the free agents are grouped according to how much demand they will be in when they enter the open market.

This year, two of the biggest free agent centers available on the open market are Tyson Chandler—who helped the Dallas Mavericks win their first NBA championship last year—and Nene of the Denver Nuggets. Chandler can help a team with his rebounding and defensive abilities, as he is not always looking for his shot. Nene is another player that can rebound, defend and score on the offensive end.

The Dallas Mavericks have said all along that they would like to re-sign the big man Chandler, but the team also has other free agents to look at, and it is not clear how many of players would be coming back. Caron Butler and JJ Barea are two other free agents that the Mavericks will have to decide if they want to bring back, depending on what offers are coming in from other teams.

However, according to a report filed on ESPN.com last night, Chandler expects that he will not be re-signing with Dallas.

There is no question that there are other teams interested in adding Chandler and they are willing to pay big money to sign him. What the Dallas Mavericks plan on doing is still not known at this point. Are they going to do everything it takes to keep Chandler in Big D? Or are they willing to do a sign-and-trade with Chandler in order to find a replacement center?

Hopefully these questions will be answered during the coming week as free agency is set to start on December 9, 2011.