Dallas has a chance to keep a longtime veteran, but doing so could come at the expense of younger players with more upside.
Dwight Powell has spent 12 seasons in Dallas, more than any player currently in the organization. He ranks fourth in franchise history in field goal percentage, fifth in games played, sixth in total rebounds and 10th in blocks. He is by every account one of the most respected professionals to come through this building and he was in Los Angeles for the minicamp Kyrie Irving organized before the team had even announced he was returning.
Now he is the only player in camp without a guaranteed roster spot and the Mavericks are weighing whether to create one.
Powell signed a training camp deal Sept. 25, bringing the roster to 19. Fifteen players hold standard contracts and three occupy two-way slots, which leaves Powell on the outside. Marc Stein reported that Dallas "has not ruled out trying to create a roster spot for him," and he named Marcus Sasser, Tarik Biberović and Moussa Cisse as players who could be affected if the front office goes that route.
That is where the logic falls apart.
Powell is 35 and entering his 13th season. He averaged 3.3 points and 4.1 rebounds in 14.3 minutes across 63 games last season. He has spent his entire career as a role player and he reached his ceiling several seasons ago. Whatever he offers now is essentially fixed and it is not much on the floor.
The three names Stein mentioned all have more to offer this franchise.
Sasser arrived from Detroit as a combo guard on a roster that carries only three guards. Cutting him would leave Dallas with Irving, rookie Sergio de Larrea and almost nothing behind them at a position where the margin is already uncomfortably thin.
Biberović is a 25-year-old wing who shot 41.9% from 3-point range in the EuroLeague last season with Turkish side Fenerbahçe, which is exactly the skill a team that finished 26th in 3-point percentage should be trying to develop rather than discard.
Cisse is the most obvious argument against the whole idea. The 24-year-old center flashed real ability last season and earned his way back onto the roster. For most of the summer, it looked like Powell was not returning at all. Now Cisse projects as the backup center in the second unit until Dereck Lively II gets healthy, which is a role Dallas has to fill regardless of what happens with Powell. He is also the better option for those minutes right now, offering more athleticism, more rim protection and more upside than a 35-year-old whose production has been declining for years.
All three are at least a decade younger than Powell and all three have some version of an upside case. Powell does not.
If the Mavericks genuinely want him on the opening-night roster, there is one obvious candidate already on the books.
Caleb Martin has given Dallas almost nothing since arriving at the 2025 trade deadline in the Quentin Grimes deal. He averaged 3.9 points and 2.5 rebounds across 58 games last season while shooting 35.1% from 3-point range and he missed the final 14 games of the year. He is 30, owed roughly $9 million and has no realistic path to a rotation spot on a roster this deep on the wing.
Waiving and stretching Martin's contract would spread the hit across three seasons at roughly $3 million per year while opening the spot Powell needs. That is the version of this move that costs Dallas little on the basketball side.
The financial commitment to Powell is modest either way. His deal is worth $3.88 million with $1 million partially guaranteed, rising if he is not waived before the season begins. This is not a franchise-altering decision.
It is a values decision, though and the Mavericks spent the entire offseason telling everyone they were building around youth, length and development. Cutting a 24-year-old center or a 25-year-old shooter to keep a 35-year-old backup would contradict that in a fairly visible way.
