Bobcats Arena
The Mavericks and the Bobcats have completed a deal sending center DeSagana Diop to Charlotte in exchange for guard Matt Carroll and center Ryan Hollins on Friday. “I think I needed to go somewhere to get a lot more minutes,” Diop said of Friday’s trade. “I wanted to play. It was very frustrating.”
Charlotte has been wanting to pair defensive specialist Diop with Emeka Okafor since he was a free agent last summer. The Bobcats offered Diop the same five-year deal worth more than $32 million that the 7-foot center wound up signing with the Mavericks.
Dallas, in turn, were desperate for weak-side shooters, with Dallas lacking a consistent perimeter threat beyond leading scorers Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Terry, leading to Nowitzki and Terry being frequently swarmed by opposing defenses.
