{"id":294702,"date":"2026-05-15T16:09:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T16:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/294702\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T16:09:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T16:09:18","slug":"dwight-powell-sets-the-culture-for-the-dallas-mavericks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/294702\/","title":{"rendered":"Dwight Powell sets the culture for the Dallas Mavericks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The year is 2015 and Dwight Powell<\/a> is a bench player on the Dallas Mavericks<\/a>. They are a middling team that will lose in the first round of the playoffs. The year is 2021 and Powell is a bench player on the Mavericks. They are a young, exciting team that will lose in the first round of the playoffs. The year is 2024 and Powell is a bench player on the Mavericks. They are an electric collection of shooters and defenders that will reach the NBA Finals. The year is 2026 and Powell is a bench player on the Mavericks. They are a weird, bad team that will finish in the bottom ten of the league.<\/p>\n

The last decade of basketball in Dallas has featured just about every type of team, except a championship team, and Powell has been around for all of them. He\u2019s seen lots of different roles\u2014young prospect, possible trade piece, important rotation player, starter in a pinch when the team is plagued by injuries, and now, veteran presence off the bench who contributes from time to time.<\/p>\n

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This Mavericks season was one of the weirdest in recent memory, and they\u2019re lucky Powell was on the roster to guide a constantly changing lineup through a rough year. He didn\u2019t have a resurgent year where he put up big numbers, but he was there to provide big man minutes when every other big man went down with injuries and kept the Mavericks\u2019 culture from turning toxic. Powell is unofficial mayor of Dallas, after all<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Season in review<\/p>\n

Powell put up some respectable numbers for a bench player on a bad team. Over 63 games and 12 starts, he averaged 6.5 points, 4.2 rebounds, and one assist per game. Again, not eyepopping numbers, but the Mavericks didn\u2019t need big numbers from Powell. He\u2019s on the team to be a veteran presence for all the young players and step in when the younger big men are unable to play.<\/p>\n

The NBA season is long, almost certainly too long. The players show up for training camp in early October and aren\u2019t done until mid-April. They play three or four games per week, flying across the country, sometimes waking up in hotel rooms not sure what city they\u2019re in. It\u2019s a grind when the team is good and the season is going great. When you\u2019re experiencing a season like the Mavericks just had, it can be a chore.<\/p>\n

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Having a player like Powell around can help. A player who\u2019s seen everything, has a personality that\u2019s uplifting, and is generally a good hang can keep a bad season from turning into a disaster. Things in Dallas could have turned toxic quickly this year, and for the most part, the team was drama-free. Powell was a part of that, and it\u2019s something NBA teams value.<\/p>\n

Best game<\/p>\n

Powell\u2019s best performance of the year came against the Utah Jazz<\/a> on January 17. In the 138-120 win over the Jazz, Powell scored 10 points, grabbed eight rebounds, dished out three assists, and had three steals. He had some games where he scored a little more, but in this game, he filled up the entire stat sheet and came away with a win.<\/p>\n

Contract status<\/p>\n

Powell just completed the last year of a 3-year deal that paid him $12 million in total. He is an unrestricted free agent.<\/p>\n

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Looking ahead<\/p>\n

As the Mavericks try to build the foundation of a contender around Cooper Flagg<\/a>, Powell won\u2019t be a priority for the new Dallas front office. But they\u2019ll have his Bird rights, and he\u2019ll likely be amenable to a team friendly deal. If the Mavericks need a veteran to hold down the end of the bench and provide more leadership than minutes, Powell will likely have a spot in Dallas.<\/p>\n

BRING HIM BACK. Dwight Powell, Mavs Functionary For Life.<\/p>\n

Grade: B-<\/p>\n

Powell does everything you want off the court. His play on the court is sometimes frustrating to watch. He\u2019s an emergency big, so it\u2019s mostly fine, but over the course of a long season, even an emergency big gets thrown into a situation where you need good play. And sometimes Powell has it in him, and sometimes he doesn\u2019t. Overall, though, the Mavericks get what they need from him\u2014a veteran who can eat minutes in garbage time and fill in when needed. It\u2019s where he\u2019s at in his career now, and he performs well in the role.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The year is 2015 and Dwight Powell is a bench player on the Dallas Mavericks. They are a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[107540,4642,102,104,2582,103,36287,15637,6406],"class_list":["post-294702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-bench-player","tag-cooper-flagg","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-mavericks","tag-dallas-news","tag-dwight-powell","tag-the-mavericks","tag-utah-jazz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}