Dirk Nowitzki openly questioned the future of the Dallas Mavericks and wondered aloud whether the franchise should consider trading him.

"It's going to be tough now," Nowitzki said on Saturday. "I always liked to think you don't want to build your franchise on hope.



"We hoped for Deron last year. We hoped for Dwight. Why would he leave the Lakers? To me, it makes no sense. He's in a great situation. Why would CP3 leave? (The Los Angeles Clippers are) the best team in the league probably right now. They're probably the deepest team. So are you going to hope that we get something?



"Maybe Cuban has something up his sleeve. Maybe you have to take a chance on a bad contract to get him in here and make something happen. I mean, I don't know. That's something we'll have to see this summer. We're going to play out this season. I'm going to get better and better, hopefully from game to game, so I can actually close out some of these games. And then we'll see what happens."

Nowitzki missed the first 27 games of the season and the Mavericks hold a 13-21 record.

"We knew that coming in, that eight or nine new guys on one-year deals is not really an ideal situation, but what else is there to do?" Nowitzki said. "So either you break the whole thing up and trade me or you get a bunch of one-year deals and try to be a player next summer. That's the decision we made, so now we've got to fight through it."