In his 18 seasons in the NBA, Dirk Nowitzki has remained loyal to the Dallas Mavericks, and Dallas fans love him for it. And so does Mark Cuban.

On Tuesday, Cuban told Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News, “Dirk can play until he’s 50. It’s not like he can get any slower.”

Nowitzki recently met with Cuban and Mavericks’ general manager Donnie Nelson to discuss the future of the Mavericks’ franchise. Nowitzki shared his thoughts on what he believes needs to happen to get the team back on track and further into where they have been a contender for many since Dirk joined the team. They barely qualified for the playoffs this past season and only won one game in their first series against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

“Obviously, we want to take a step forward again,” Nowizki said. “There are some names out there that obviously we’d love to have (in free agency), but we all know how that worked the last few years. Sometimes, there’s some luck involved.”

“But it’s not for lack of trying. Mark and Donnie always have tried their best to keep a winning franchise and a playoff franchise. I don’t think anything else is planned but that.”

The Mavericks did their best to recruit free agents over the past couple years. They even reportedly had a deal to acquire DeAndre Jordan, but Jordan backed out at the last minute. Nowitzki took a pay cut in 2014 when he sign a three-year, $24-million contract to give the Mavericks' organization more financial flexibility as they tried to bring in new free agents.

“Dirk gets to do whatever he wants to do,” Cuban said. “Period. End of story. I told him when we met the other day, ‘Dirk gets to do whatever Dirk wants to do.’ Dirk wants to be the head chef, Dirk wants to be the head coach, we’ll move Rick (Carlisle) over a little bit. Dirk has done so much for this franchise that he’s earned that opportunity.”

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