Mavericks Waive John Poulakidas as Olympiacos Watch Closely

By Taki Panos

October is cut-down season in the NBA, and on Saturday it reached a Greek-American. The Dallas Mavericks announced that they had waived guard John Poulakidas from his two-way contract, along with guard Seth Lundy, who was on a non-guaranteed training camp deal, Hoops Rumors reported. Sports Illustrated's Mavericks site confirmed the same pair of moves. For a shooter who spent all summer insisting the NBA came first, it is a big fork in the road, and Greek basketball outlets picked up the news the same night.

If you are just catching up, Poulakidas is a 6-foot-6 guard from Naperville, Illinois, who played four seasons at Yale and went undrafted in 2025, per the NBA G League. His roots are fully Greek. In an interview with ERT3 quoted on his Wikipedia page, he said his grandfather was born in Sparta, his grandmother is from Chios, and his mother's family comes from Rizes in the Peloponnese. We covered his 16-point preseason night against New Orleans just a few days ago.

His NBA résumé is short but real. Dallas signed him to a two-year, two-way deal in March, and he played 13 games down the stretch, averaging 8.8 points and 2.3 rebounds in 19.5 minutes while hitting 40.3 percent of his threes, according to Hoops Rumors and Eurohoops. His best night came on April 12, when he scored 28 points with eight threes in a 149-128 win over the Chicago Bulls, as the Basketball-Reference box score and Wikipedia show. Not bad for a guy who started the season in the G League.

Before Dallas, Poulakidas spent the first months of the 2025-26 season with the San Diego Clippers, where he shot 47.3 percent from three in 24 G League regular-season games, the seventh-best mark among qualified players, the G League noted. At Yale, he led the Ivy League in scoring as a senior and was named Ivy League Tournament MVP, per the same release. As a junior he hit six threes and scored 28 in Yale's NCAA Tournament upset of Auburn, Wikipedia recounts. The shooting has followed him everywhere.

So why cut him now? This preseason he scored 21 points in 41 minutes across three games and made 5 of 11 threes, Hoops Rumors wrote, but the club decided to go in a different direction with that two-way slot. Dallas now has 18 players under contract, 16 on standard deals and two on two-ways, and still has to settle the future of Dwight Powell before Monday's regular-season roster deadline, the same report explained. Roster math in October is rarely personal. It still stings.

Sports Illustrated's Mavericks site pointed out that Dallas already has Jett Howard on a two-way deal and Tarik Biberovic on a standard contract who can fill similar shooting roles, and it expects the team to use the open spot on another playmaker. The writer added that there had been talk of Poulakidas playing in Greece next season, and that this move may give that a kickstart. Which brings us to the part of the story that Piraeus cares about most.

Olympiacos have had Poulakidas on their radar for months, pickandroll.gr reported, citing HoopsHype's Michael Scotto on the release itself. Coach Georgios Bartzokas watched him in person at Summer League in Las Vegas, and the Reds see him as a way to strengthen the Greek core of their roster, per the same outlet (translated from Greek). Dallas Sports Journal went further back in August, reporting that Bartzokas, general manager Nikos Lepeniotis and sports director Christos Bafes all made the trip to Las Vegas in July and met with him there.

Until now, the main obstacle was the player himself. He wanted to stay in the United States and fight for an NBA job, pickandroll.gr noted. Eurohoops reported in August that he planned to spend at least one more season in the NBA before considering a move overseas, and Athletiko wrote at the time that the NBA was his clear priority, as he had told Olympiacos (translated from Greek). Saturday's move changes that equation, even if it does not decide it.

There is also the passport question. Poulakidas is pursuing a Greek passport, which would count him as a domestic player for a Greek club and make him eligible for the national team, Dallas Sports Journal reported and Eurohoops confirmed. "We've been meeting with the federation. We met with the embassy in Chicago," he said in Las Vegas in July, adding, "I would love to play for the Greek national team as soon as possible," per Dallas Sports Journal. Plenty of diaspora families know that paperwork road, and our guide on who qualifies for Greek citizenship walks through it.

Olympiacos may not have the field to themselves. Eurohoops reported in August that Panathinaikos could enter the race for his signature, as Dallas Sports Journal also relayed. The timing is interesting on the red side of town, too. Pickandroll.gr linked the news to the Tyler Dorsey situation, after the club dropped Dorsey from its Barcelona trip following his social media post, with decisions on that front expected next week. Add Giannoulis Larentzakis, who is now hitting big shots for AEK, and the market for Greek-passport guards looks busy.

My take: nobody should treat this as a done deal, because no agreement has been reported and Poulakidas has every right to look for another NBA or G League chance first. But the fit is easy to see. He is 23, he can really shoot, and he wants that Greek passport and a national team jersey. A EuroLeague contender offering real minutes and a home crowd that already knows his name is not a consolation prize. Sometimes the detour turns out to be the road.

For now, the next headline will be his decision, and Dallas has its own roster calls to make before Monday's deadline. Whatever he chooses, we will follow it, so keep an eye on our Greek Sports section for updates on Poulakidas and the rest of the Greek and Greek-heritage players in the NBA and beyond. One door closed in Dallas. Another one may be opening in Piraeus.

Sources: Hoops Rumors, Sports Illustrated, pickandroll.gr, Dallas Sports Journal, Eurohoops, Athletiko, NBA G League, Basketball-Reference, Wikipedia.

Image: John Poulakidas with Yale in March 2025, by Kenneth C. Zirkel, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).