Popular Spanish site Marca.com reports that Rudy Fernandez has told Real Madrid that he will not accept their six-year offer to join them during the lockout, return to Dallas for the rest of the 2011-12 season once the lockout is over, then move to Real for the remaining five years.
Fernandez wants to play his season in Dallas and then review his options, which is exactly what Donnie Nelson and the Mavericks hope he will do. Nelson has said that he expects Fernandez to fit well into Dallas’ ball-moving offense and that he sees him taking on a ball-handling role.
The report says that Real will try to improve their struggling team in other ways, while waiting to see what happens with the NBA lockout and Rudy’s time in Dallas, but for once they aren’t the baddest boys on the block. While Rudy prefers the European style, the ACB is still second tier. And while the offer to come to Madrid is earth shattering in basketball terms in Europe, it’s role-player money in the NBA. Meanwhile, the Mavericks are the best team in the world.