Dallas Mavericks: Just When Dwight Powell Was Making His Case
By Kohl Rast
Just as things were starting to look up for the big man out of Stanford, Dwight Powell makes yet another costly mistake for the team. Will he ever be a player the Mavs can trust?
Last night’s loss should stick with the Dallas Mavericks for a long time. Just when the Mavs were starting to look good again, they lose to an already bad team missing their four best players. This loss should sting and should leave a bad taste in the mouth of each Dallas player. No one should feel it as bad as Dwight Powell, though.
I can’t blame the entire game last night on Powell because everyone other than Maxi Kleber played bad. In fact, leading up to the final seconds of the game, I thought Powell was the 2nd best player for the Mavs all night. This was supposed to be a piece praising his efforts over the last few weeks. Instead, we have this.
It may be a little harsh to go too hard on a guy that really did play well up until the final minute but, when you are 6’10” and coach puts you in with seconds left simply to get a rebound, you should get that rebound.
Dwight Powell is definitely having the most effective season of his career so far. Although still likely not at the necessary level of play to justify his contract, he is at least making a positive impact while on the court. Gone are the days of nightly missed lobs and turnovers as Powell is becoming a more sure-handed player every game.
His shot is still flat and Carlisle should take the three-pointer out of his game completely, but the point I am making here is that he is not as bad as he was once thought to be…overall. The problem now is that he is really bad in certain situations, and that is why the Mavericks still have not gotten the contract player they signed up for.
Until Powell can prove to be a consistent player, Dallas can’t have him in to end games. Quite simply, if you can’t be in at the end of the game, you shouldn’t be making $9 mil a year. There is a lot of basketball left to be played under his contract and, at 26 years old, there is still time to grow, but until that growth is showing on a regular basis, the Mavs will continually have to accept that they made a bad contract deal with Powell.
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There is a lot of hate towards Powell and understandably so, but between the work he has put in and the work he does off the court, we should be cutting the guy a little bit of slack. He may not have earned his contract yet, but Mavs fans should be ready to admit it if/when he does.