The Dallas Mavericks made a meaningful center decision Monday without settling the center rotation. By waiving Dwight Powell and retaining Moussa Cissé, the club chose which possibility to keep on its 15-man standard roster. It did not announce who will receive the next meaningful shift when Dallas opens the regular season Wednesday in Houston.
Dusty May supplied a more practical description of the opening on Monday. The coach wants Cissé to keep building strength in his lower body and sees value in the pressure he puts on the rim when rolling toward it. May expects opportunities for minutes, particularly with injuries affecting the roster.
Those are specific things to work on, rather than a reserve job handed over with the paperwork.
The roster mechanics explain why Monday carried weight. The guarantee on Cissé’s salary of $2,185,116 took full effect after the Oct. 1 deadline, and Dallas had matched New York’s offer sheet for him in July. Before Powell’s waiver, the Mavericks had 15 guaranteed standard contracts, the league limit. Keeping Powell would have meant removing another guaranteed player.
So Dallas selected Cissé when it chose which contract to preserve. That is a front-office judgment about the roster’s needs and the value of continuing to evaluate him. It is not a depth-chart announcement. Cissé can be retained and still spend nights behind other options, depending on the availability of the other centers and rookie Morez Johnson Jr. capable of playing either forward or center.
Lively has not yet received clearance after right-foot surgery and missed Dallas’ four exhibition games. That adds urgency to finding useful reserve minutes without settling the long-term rotation. Cissé’s path to regular work runs through the unglamorous possessions that coaches notice quickly: setting solid screens, securing rebounds, maintaining position and handling the defensive assignment without creating a second problem.
A guaranteed salary can provide time to make that case. It cannot manufacture the case itself.
That is particularly true because the Mavericks do not need to force one answer. Gafford and Lively give head coach Dusty May two other listed center options, while Johnson offers frontcourt flexibility. The existence of those alternatives means Cissé’s opportunity may arrive in pieces—an early stint, a particular matchup, or minutes created by foul trouble or availability—rather than as a promised backup role.
Powell supplied the strongest counterargument to choosing possibility over readiness. Dallas brought him back before training camp, roughly a month before Monday’s move, and he competed for the reserve-center position. Last season, he appeared in 63 games, made 12 starts and averaged 14.3 minutes. His scoring average was 3.3 points, accompanied by 1.1 assists and 4.1 rebounds per game.
Those numbers describe a player accustomed to a modest NBA assignment, not proof that Powell was the correct choice for this roster. They do show why experience could have appealed to Dallas as the season approached. Powell has played 768 NBA games, and his familiarity with the league’s daily demands was a reasonable alternative to betting on Cissé’s still-unsettled role.
