Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is funding research into the practice of flopping.

Cuban is paying Southern Methodist University $100,000 to conduct an 18-month study to investigate whether or not video or other motion capture techniques can differentiate flops from genuine player collisions.

“The research findings could conceivably contribute to video reviews of flopping and the subsequent assignment of fines,” SMU biomechanics expert Peter G. Weyand said in a statement.

Cuban wrote on Twitter: “Is it a flop? Let the scientists figure it out . im paying for the research to find out.”

Meanwhile, NBA commissioner David Stern has requested the league to expand its anti-flopping rules.

Reported by the Sports Xchange

One of the greatest, most fun-to-watch point guards in this era of professional basketball is saying goodbye and moving on to greener pastures.

New York Knicks Executive Vice President, Basketball Operations and General Manager Glen Grunwald announced today that 10-time NBA All-Star guard Jason Kidd has retired from playing professional basketball.

“Jason’s value to the Knicks and the National Basketball Association cannot be quantified by statistics alone,” Grunwald said. “Everyone here in New York saw firsthand what a tremendous competitor he is and why Jason is considered to be one of the best point guards, and leaders, the game has ever seen.”

“My time in professional basketball has been an incredible journey, but one that must come to an end after 19 years,” Kidd said. “As I reflect on my time with the four teams I represented in the NBA, I look back fondly at every season and thank each every one of my teammates and coaches that joined me on the court.”

“Veteran leadership on and off the court was a huge factor for our team that recorded 54 victories and an Atlantic Division crown,” Head Coach Mike Woodson said. “Jason provided an incredible voice inside our lockerroom and I considered it an honor to say I coached him.”

Kidd, 6-4, 220-pounds, holds averages of 12.6 points, 8.7 assists. 6.3 rebounds and 1.93 steals with Dallas, Phoenix, New Jersey and New York. These Springfield-caliber career numbers have solidified his place among the greatest of the great in NBA history. On the League’s all-time leaders lists he ranks: second in season-appearances (19), sixth in games played (1,391), third in minutes (50,111), second in assists (12,091), second in steals (2,684), third in three-point field goals (1,988), 50th overall in rebounds and first overall amongst guards (8,725), 71st in points scored (17,529) and third in triple-doubles (107).

He appeared in 158 postseason games, averaging 12.9 points, 7.8 assists, 6.7 rebounds and 1.91 steals and led the Dallas Mavericks, along with current Knicks All-Star center Tyson Chandler, to the 2011 NBA Championship. He also is a two-time Olympic Gold Medalist, leading Team USA in 2000 at Sydney and in 2008 in Beijing. As a member of the New Jersey Nets, Kidd appeared in back-to-back NBA Finals in 2002 and 2003.

Kidd is a 10-time NBA All-Star (1996, 1998, 2000-04, 2007-08, 2010), a five-time All-NBA First-Team selection (1999-02, 2004) and earned All-NBA Second Team honors in 2003. He was named to the NBA’s All-Defensive First Team four times (1999, 2001, 2002, 2006) and Second Team five times (2000, 2003-05, 2007) and was the 1995 Co-Rookie of the Year. On Apr. 30, Kidd became the first-ever back-to-back recipient of the Joe Dumars Trophy presented to the 2012-13 NBA Sportsmanship Award winner, an honor voted-on by all current players.

In his first and only season with the Knicks, Kidd provided trademark backcourt leadership and stability both as a starter and off the bench. Recording averages of 6.0 points, 3.3 assists, 4.3 rebounds and 1.64 steals in 76 games, the San Francisco, CA native became just the third Knicks player to celebrate his 40th birthday in the orange and blue (joining Kurt Thomas and Herb Williams).

Read NBA fan reaction and share your opinion in this basketball forum topic.

InsideHoops.com editor Jeff Lenchiner says: The immediate guess is that J-Kidd, assuming he still wants to earn a paycheck going forward, may dive into coaching. I won’t be surprised if he’s an assistant coach somewhere next season.

Mark Cuban’s goal is to make the Dallas Mavericks a championship team again within a two-year window.

After Dallas missed the playoffs for the first time in 12 years, the owner vowed the Mavs would have a “quick rebuild.” The pending pitch to free agents this summer — including Chris Paul and Dwight Howard — is that the franchise can take a significant step forward next season and then have the salary-cap space available again in 2014 to make more major upgrades.

“We want to be a championship team. We’ve never said we have to be a championship team this year,” Cuban said Saturday on ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM during his first interview since the Mavs’ season ended. “We want to be a better team, a top-seed team. If we get the top free agent, that doesn’t leave us a whole lot of flexibility to add a lot of players, but we have a good nucleus around them. We know we’ll have a good team, but we won’t know if we have a great team.

“If you look at this like a two-year plan, then we think we’re on a track to have a great team by the end of next year.”

Reported by Tim MacMahon of ESPN Dallas

The Mavericks’ next order of business is to get ready for the draft lottery and president Donnie Nelson, who will represent the team in New York for the lottery along with longtime assistant GM Keith Grant, has a plan for the lottery.

“I’m going to wear the same outfit I wore for Game 6 in Miami,” he said, referring to the night that the Mavericks won the title against the Heat in 2011. “Same boots. Same shirt. Same cologne. Everything.”

– Reported by Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News

Eight or nine players from the Mavs’ final roster will be free agents, depending on whether O.J. Mayo exercises his option to return for a $4.2 million salary or tests the market for the second straight summer. Almost to a man, they say they’d like to be back in Dallas, but that’s not the way the business works.

The Mavs, depending on Mayo’s decision and the salary cap figure the NBA sets, will have somewhere between $13 million and $18.7 million in spending money this summer — unless they create more space with salary-dump deals. They need significant upgrades to have a serious chance of competing at the level they had become accustomed to over the previous dozen seasons.

“I’ve been saying it all season long: It’s a big summer for us,” said Dirk Nowitzki, who is the only player guaranteed to return to Dallas next season. “We’ll see what Mark and Donnie can come up with. They’re always geniuses at making stuff happen. We need a big summer, obviously, to compete again for the championship and not for the eighth seed.”

– Reported by Tim MacMahon of ESPN Dallas

Rick Carlisle bolted a couple of steps onto the court, right in the path of O.J. Mayo dribbling up the sideline, to frantically call a timeout midway through the fourth quarter.

After the referee blew the whistle, Carlisle shot a disgusted stare toward Mayo. The Dallas Mavericks coach appeared to resist the urge to rip the ball away from his 25-year-old shooting guard, who had two sloppy turnovers and a weak foul on a made layup in the minute and a half before that uncomfortable moment.

“I called that timeout just to get you out of the game!” Carlisle screamed at Mayo in the huddle, according to one player.

Just in case Mayo didn’t get the message, Carlisle made his criticism loud and clear during his postgame news conference after the Mavs’ 103-97 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies. Mayo had a miserable performance against his former team, scoring only two points on 1-of-6 shooting and committing four turnovers before watching crunch time from the pine.

“I just want to see him show up,” said Carlisle, who was as harsh publicly with a player as he’s been since calling out Lamar Odom at the end of the his strange midseason sabbatical. “I just want to see him show up and compete. He didn’t compete tonight.

“And I tell you, with all the time we’ve put into helping him develop and bringing him along, in the biggest game of the year — an opportunity to be a winning team — for him to show up like he did tonight, I was shocked.

“Look, sometimes guys have bad nights, so make sure to put that in there, too.”

– Reported by Tim MacMahon of ESPN Dallas

Dirk Nowitzki didn’t even wait to shower before shaving off his beard.

After becoming the 17th player in NBA history to score 25,000 career points, he was even happier the Dallas Mavericks got back to .500 for the first time since mid-December, allowing him to shave off the facial hair he and his teammates had vowed to leave untouched until they evened their record.

Shawn Marion had 21 points on 10-of-16 shooting, Nowitzki scored 19 and the Dallas Mavericks beat the New Orleans Hornets 107-89 on Sunday night.

Brandan Wright and Vince Carter added 16 points off the bench for Mavericks. They had lost by double digits in their three previous chances to even their record.

”It’s been too long,” the clean-shaven Nowitzki said. ”My wife stopped kissing me somewhere in February. It feels good to shave again.”

Nowitzki reached the 25,000-point mark with a midrange jumper over Hornets’ center Robin Lopez in the second quarter. Teammates said he reached for the razor almost as soon as he entered the locker room after the game.

– Reported by Guerry Smith of the Associated Press

The Dallas Mavericks announced today that they have signed guard Josh Akognon, presumably just for the remainder of the 2012-13 NBA season.

Akognon (5-11, 185) originally signed a 10-day contract with Dallas on April 3. He made his NBA regular-season debut against Phoenix on April 10 and recorded two points and one assist in 4 minutes.

A native of Petaluma, Calif., Akognon began his collegiate career at Washington State before transferring to Cal State Fullerton. As a junior, he led the Titans to a Big West regular season title, Big West Tournament Championship and an NCAA Tournament appearance for the first time in 30 years. As a senior, Akognon was named Big West Conference Player of the Year after averaging 23.9 points per game. He went undrafted in the 2009 NBA Draft.

This is unfamiliar, uncomfortable territory for Mark Cuban.

It’s the first full season of his ownership tenure in which the Dallas Mavericks are finished before the playoffs. He hopes it will be the last such season.

“I’ve always said there is one winner and 29 other teams tied for last,” Cuban said via email Thursday morning, hours after the Mavs were officially eliminated, ending a 12-year playoff streak. “Our goal is to win championships, so it’s disappointing to not win. But we will come back and get better next year.”

This will be a big summer for the Mavs, as Dirk Nowitzki has said dozens of times as Dallas’ dozen-year playoff streak neared its end.

So was last summer, but the Mavericks had to settle for essentially constructing a temporary supporting cast of players on expiring contracts or willing to sign one-year deals. That definitely wasn’t the plan when Cuban made the difficult post-lockout decision to let Tyson Chandler and other key championship pieces depart Dallas via free agency.

The ideal situation would be adding a superstar who could take the burden off soon-to-be-35-year-old Nowitzki. When the Mavs opted to create significant salary-cap space for the first time in the Cuban era, they did so with the belief that Chris Paul, Dwight Howard and Deron Williams would all be on the market last summer.

– Reported by Tim MacMahon of ESPN Dallas

The Dallas Mavericks announced today that they have signed free agent guard Josh Akognon to a 10-day contract.

Akognon (5-11, 185) spent the 2012 preseason with the Mavericks before signing with the Liaoning Jiebao Hunters of the Chinese Basketball Association for the 2012-13 season. In 36 games with the Hunters, he averaged 29.0 points, 3.1 rebounds, 1.9 steals and 34.9 minutes per game.

After going undrafted in the 2009 NBA Draft, Akognon played for BC Kalev/Cramo Tallinn of the Estonian League in 2009-10. He played two seasons for the DongGuan New Century Leopards of the CBA from 2010-12, followed by a brief stint with the Canton Charge of the NBA Development League in 2011-12. Akognon spent the 2012 NBA Summer League with the Sacramento Kings.

A native of Petaluma, Calif., Akognon started his collegiate career at Washington State University before transferring to California State University, Fullerton. As a junior, he led the Titans to a Big West regular season title, Big West Tournament Championship and an NCAA Tournament appearance for the first time in 30 years. As a senior, Akognon was named Big West Conference Player of the Year after averaging 23.9 points per game.

Akognon is expected to join the team in Denver and be available for the game against the Nuggets on April 4. He will wear No. 10 for the Mavericks.

Akognon will replace Justin Dentmon on the Mavericks’ 15-man roster. Dentmon was released from his 10-day contract after appearing in two games for Dallas and logging 4 total minutes.

Mathematically, they remain alive. But after the Los Angeles Lakers controlled them all night for a 101-81 victory, the Mavericks must face the grim reality that their playoff hopes bit the dust at Staples Center.

“We knew we were behind the 8-ball all season,” said Dirk Nowitzki. “This was a game we needed to have if we really wanted to make it interesting.”

The Mavericks fell behind by 16 points in the second quarter and never made it up. Their fight was commendable, but their execution and talent level simply wasn’t equal to the Lakers, who rode Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard and Earl Clark to the win.

The Mavericks lost the season series to the Lakers 3-1 and fell to 36-38, 2 ½ games behind the Lakers and Utah Jazz, who are tied for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.

– Reported by Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News

The Dallas Mavericks announced today that they have recalled Jared Cunningham from the Texas Legends of the NBA Development League.

Cunningham (6-4, 194) served two stints with the Legends, averaging 15.3 points, 3.0 assists, 1.2 steals and 34.5 minutes in 15 games (13 starts). He was originally assigned to the D-League on Dec. 11, then re-assigned on Jan. 28.

Cunningham has seen action in eight games for the Mavericks this season and is averaging 2.0 points and 3.3 minutes per game.

Mike James didn’t play like a 37-year-old on his last legs in the NBA on Sunday night.

James scored a season-high 19 points, Dirk Nowitzki added 17 and the Dallas Mavericks beat the slumping Utah Jazz 113-108.

The journeyman point guard scored 12 points in the third quarter, including seven in a 20-2 run which bridged the third and fourth quarters.

”I’m like a little kid in the candy store,” James said. ”People don’t understand how much fun I’m having out there.”

The 11th-year point guard is probably enjoying himself more now considering he didn’t even have an NBA job three months ago. James joined Dallas on a 10-day contract on Jan. 8, and the Mavericks signed him for the rest of season three weeks later.

Rick Carlisle inserted James into the starting lineup on March 6, and the Mavericks have gone 8-3 since then to get within two games of the Los Angeles Lakers for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference…

Vince Carter and Shawn Marion each had 15 as the Mavericks improved to 2-1 on a season-long six-game homestand. Dallas has gone 21-13 since dropping 10 games under .500 on Jan. 9…

Enes Kanter scored 17 points as the Jazz lost their ninth straight on the road, Utah’s longest such skid since losing 17 in a row away from home during the 1981-82 season. The Jazz’s last road win was Feb. 13 at Minnesota.

– Reported by David Jimenez of the Associated Press

Jason Eugene Terry will be back at American Airlines Center Friday night for the first time since he left the Dallas Mavericks last summer to sign a three-year, $15.675 million free agent contract with the Boston Celtics.

And there’s at least four overzealous Mavericks fans who hope the Jet will receive the royal treatment from the sellout crowd that’ll be on hand when Dallas (32-36) faces the Celtics (36-31) at 7:30 p.m.

“I hope they give him a standing ovation,’’ owner Mark Cuban said. “He deserves it.

“He’ll be a Maverick for life. He’s part of the family.’’

Terry played for the Mavericks from 2004 until last summer when he and Cuban couldn’t agree on a contract that would have kept him in Dallas for what he wanted to be the remainder of his career. Still, the two have remained friends as Cuban has already said he plans to retire Terry’s No. 31 jersey and hang it in the AAC rafters once he retires.

– Reported by Dwain Price of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Brook Lopez is just like Deron Williams. He enjoys visiting Dallas, too.

Lopez scored 38 points and Williams had 31 in his first visit since spurning his hometown team in free agency, leading the Brooklyn Nets past the Mavericks 113-96 on Wednesday night.

Williams scored 26 in the second half, repeatedly hitting shots and occasionally assisting on baskets by Lopez to prevent a Dallas rally in the fourth quarter.

Lopez matched the 38 points he scored in one of the five games he played last season, when the Nets snapped a 12-game losing streak in Dallas. Both times, he finished one point shy of his career high from two years ago against Detroit.

”The team played well in both games,” Lopez said with a laugh. ”I think that’s the correlation. It just depends on who’s hot. We have so many options on this team.” …

Dirk Nowitzki led Dallas with 16 points and had a team-high six rebounds compared to 22 boards for Reggie Evans of the Nets, who outrebounded the Mavericks 45-34.

– Reported by Schuyler Dixon of the Associated Press

A former NFL player and Dallas Cowboy has filed a lawsuit in a Dallas County court against former Dallas Maverick and All-Star Rolando Blackman, who he says convinced the cornerback to invest in a faulty African gold venture.

The former NFL player, Nathaniel Jones, met Blackman and fellow defendant David Mureeba, chief executive of a tech company, through “friends and contacts,” according to the lawsuit filed this week.

Last spring, the two defendants in the suit presented Jones with an opportunity to invest in exploration and refinement of gold through another of Mureeba’s businesses, East Africa Power & Energy. They told him his investment of $150,000 would be used to airlift precious metals from East Africa to Belgium, where the gold would be sold to a refinery, according to the lawsuit.

Mureeba and Blackman guaranteed Jones a 4 percent return on his investment. Mureeba encouraged the former football player to invest more.

– Reported by Christina Rosales of the Dallas Morning News

An innocent slip of the foot turned into a life-changing experience for Chris Wright.

That slip, which occurred last March while Wright was playing basketball in Turkey, ultimately led to the 6-1 point guard discovering that he was suffering from multiple sclerosis, a disease which impacts the brain and spinal cord when the protective sheaths around the nerves are damaged.

“I was in practice running sprints and at the end of practice I went down to touch the line and came up and I slipped,’’ Wright said. “My foot gave out and I thought nothing of it.

“I thought I just slipped, but eventually it got worse and I had numbness in my right foot, and then it started the next month to progress to the whole right side of my body. I lost basically all sensation, and I went to the doctor and that’s when they diagnosed me with MS.’’

– Reported by Dwain Price of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram

If Dirk Nowitzki put up his post-All-Star break numbers all season long, he probably wouldn’t have been able to take a midseason vacation on a Mexican beach.

Since his 11-year streak of All-Star appearances was snapped, Nowitzki has averaged 18.3 points and 8.8 rebounds per game, shooting 49.5 percent from the floor and 50 percent from 3-point range.

“What we’re seeing now with Dirk is what we can expect to see next year and the year after, if he stays healthy,” Mark Cuban said. “And the year after that.”

Three more years of All-Star caliber play from a power forward who turns 35 this summer?

“At least,” Cuban said.

“I’m not sure about all that,” Nowitzki said. “We’ll just have to wait and see. Hopefully I can finish this season strong and have a good summer like I basically did last year with a lot of lifting and running and hopefully not have a setback with a surgery. We’ll see how consistent I can be again next season.”

– Reported by Tim MacMahon of ESPN Dallas

The injury bug bit [Dallas Mavericks guard] Rodrigue Beaubois once again.

Beaubois exited Sunday night’s game against the Thunder after fracturing the second metacarpal in his left hand during the second quarter. He is out indefinitely.

The fourth-year guard had played his way back into Rick Carlisle’s rotation with two strong performances this week. Carlisle called Beaubois 18-point, five-assist outing in Friday’s win “by far” his best game of the season.

– Reported by Tim MacMahon of ESPN Dallas

An MRI performed Friday revealed that Shawn Marion has a strained left calf.

The injury will keep the Dallas Mavericks’ small forward on the sidelines indefinitely. And it’s much more serious than the left calf contusion the Mavericks thought Marion had when he suffered the injury March 6 against the Houston Rockets.

“It’s getting better, but being a strain instead of a contusion, those take longer, so it’s going to be a whole lot longer [recovery period],” coach Rick Carlisle said. “We hope not too long, but we’re going to exercise caution, and we’re going to make sure he’s right before he gets back.”

Marion missed all four games on the Mavs’ recent road trip.

– Reported by Dwain Price of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram