DALLAS – Dirk Nowitzki has been replaced by Chandler Parsons in the unofficial role as the lead recruiter for the Dallas Mavericks, but he’s still more than willing to roll out the welcome mat for LaMarcus Aldridge this summer.

“We’d love to have him,” Nowitzki said Tuesday at a Mavs youth camp on the campus of the Episcopal School of Dallas. “He’s a great midrange shooter. He plays bigger than he is on the defensive end. He’s a good rebounder on both ends of the floor and on that left block, he’s a beast. So I mean, he’s a really, really good player.”

Aldridge is also an All-Star power forward, which gives him something in common with Nowitzki. However, Nowitzki has made it clear that he’d be happy to move to the bench to accommodate the homecoming of Aldridge, arguably the best NBA player ever produced by the Dallas Independent School District. The Mavs and San Antonio Spurs are considered the top threats to persuade Aldridge to leave the Portland Trail Blazers.

Nowitzki, a 17-year veteran and the seventh-leading scorer in NBA history, said during exit interviews after the Mavs’ season ended that he’d accept a transition to a sixth-man role in the right circumstances. He isn’t wavering on that as the Mavs prepare for a free agency period in which Aldridge and Los Angeles Clippers center DeAndre Jordan will be their top targets.

“We want to get better. That’s no question,” Nowitzki said. “We want to go further in the playoffs. We’ve been ousted twice in the first round the last two years and whatever I got to do, I’m ready to help. I know that, at 37, I can’t be the No. 1 option if we want to play for the championship. That’s just normal. That’s how the cycle goes.”

Some of Nowitzki’s other thoughts on summer subjects:

On shooting guard Monta Ellis, who has a June 24 deadline to exercise his player option for the final season of his three-year, $25 million deal: “I haven’t talked to him lately, but I’m guessing he’s going to opt out. Like, why would he not? He had two phenomenal seasons here. He was our closer. He was our leading scorer last year, and I’m sure for his market value, he feels like he was a little underpaid. My feeling is that he would opt out, but I have no idea. I think he only has a couple more days to make that decision. … We’ll have to wait and see what happens this week, but my gut feeling would be that he’s going to opt out, and then that’s another decision that we’ve got to make. He’s been phenomenal for us and that’s another guy I’d love to keep and build on, because he’s been so phenomenal for us. But we all know how free agency goes.”

On center Tyson Chandler, who will be a free agent: “Obviously, that’s one position we’d love to keep. I thought Tyson played a phenomenal year. He had some injury problems there towards the end, but in the playoffs, I thought he played well. He battled Dwight. He’s still our anchor defensively, and there was a stretch where he was a walking double-double for a while. But you know how it is for free agency. Knowing Tyson, I’m sure he’s not a big fan of that whole process, either, so I’m guessing that he’ll commit pretty soon in free agency. I have no idea what that all means, but I’d love to see him in Dallas. We’d love to keep him, but we wanted to do the same thing in the lockout year and the Knicks came in and gave him an unbelievable deal that business-wise we decided not to match. So honestly, I have no clue what the team’s going to look like next year, but that’s part of the excitement and we’ll go from there.”

On playing for Germany in the Eurobasket 2015 tournament in Berlin: “Very excited. To me, it was a big deal that the tournament or at least the first round is in Germany. I’ve never had a home European Championship or World Championship. This means a lot to our country and the basketball world in our country. Berlin is an amazing basketball city over the last 15, 20 years. It should be fun. We have a murder group with a lot of great countries, but we’re going to give it our best and see what happens. At 37, obviously that’s not easy. In the first round, we got like five games in six days. I’m going to get in shape now. I already started with some strength program stuff. I’ll probably start getting in the gym in July and then join the team in the middle of August. And then the games start in September. So the rest of the summer is going to fly by.”