Donnie Nelson, General Manager and Basketball Operations Director of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, reportedly promised Chinese basketball player Ding Yanyuhang that his team will offer Ding a short-term contract after the this current CBA season comes to an end, according to reports from ESPN citing the Dallas Morning News. 

The promise reportedly happened when Nelson went to watch the CBA game between the Shandong Hi-Speed Basketball Club and the Fubon Bayi Rocket Club on December 7. Though Ding had planned to take a rest for the game, he decided to play after learning that the Mavericks GM was in the arena. Ding ended up scoring 21 points led his team to victory.

After the game, Ding and Nelson went out for dinner with both of their staff and discussed Ding's possible future in the NBA. During this face-to-face meeting, Nelson is said to have promised Ding that if there are still enough games in the NBA regular season after the CBA season ends, the Dallas Mavericks will sign with Ding to short-term contract – which could be anything from a 10-day contract to a contract that will be effective until the 2017-18 NBA season is over. 

Sources told ESPN that Nelson repeated the promise "three to four times."

There are reasons to believe that this promised short-term contract will not be a two-way contract. The first being that the Mavericks already have two such contracts in place, the maximum for any team can have. The Mavericks would have to cut a player to make room for Ding.

A player with a two-way contract can only play a maximum of 45 days on an NBA team. If the contract is signed in the middle of the season, then the 45 days will be further slashed based on how many days are left in the season, meaning Ding may only have one day or even hours to play.

Nelson visited Shandong on December 1 and told neither Ding nor the Hi-Speed Basketball Club at the beginning. Besides observing Ding's performance, he also came to make contact with the Shandong Hi-Speed Group representing Mavericks' owner, Mark Cuban, who hopes to work more with the group, especially related to traffic infrastructure construction in Dallas.