Dusty May Calls Dallas Mavericks Move ‘Almost Too Big Of A Dream,’ Centers Vision On Cooper Flagg

DALLAS — The Dallas Mavericks formally introduced Dusty May as their head coach on Monday, a week after he left Michigan and the program he guided to the 2026 national championship.

May arrives as the centerpiece hire of president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri‘s first offseason running Dallas. Ujiri parted with Jason Kidd after five seasons and ran a national search that landed in Ann Arbor, betting that a coach with no NBA experience can steady a franchise coming off a 26-56 finish.

The roster he inherits starts with Cooper Flagg, the 2025 No. 1 pick who averaged 21.0 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 4.5 assists on his way to Rookie of the Year. May was asked where the 19-year-old fits in his system and kept the answer open.

“Cooper plays all over the court,” May said. “We’re building a very unique roster.”

Masai Ujiri Sets the Tone for the Mavericks

Ujiri opened the news conference by framing the hire as a turning point, calling May a coach, a leader, and an innovator who finds joy in making players and organizations better. He thanked governor Patrick Dumont for the chance to remake the franchise and laid out the mandate plainly.

“We want to bring winning to this organization and to this city,” Ujiri said. “We want to bring joy back to basketball here.”

Asked later whether Dallas is building for the long term or to contend now, Ujiri deflected with a joke that the calendar had flipped to “Dusty June,” then turned serious about the goal.

“The goal is to win,” Ujiri said. “We have a star young player here that we want to build around, really incredible young players and great veteran players.”

He pointed to the league’s parity as a reason the timeline can move quickly, without promising immediate contention.

“There’s parity in the NBA, and however we can get there, we’ll try our best to win and continue growing this organization,” Ujiri said. “But the mentality is winning.”

Why Dusty May Left Michigan for Dallas

May said leaving a national champion was hard and easy at the same time.

“It was very difficult to leave the situation we were in, but it was also very simple because it was the Mavericks and because of the people I get to work with every single day,” May said.

The opening came together almost by accident. May said the first conversation happened when he ran into Ujiri and general manager Mike Schmitz in Chicago, with no job on the table, while the group talked about his Michigan players, three of whom were projected lottery picks.

“We had a great conversation that had nothing to do with this position,” May said. “Then, while we were talking about our players, they asked whether I would have any interest in this job. My eyes immediately lit up.”

May said the fit was obvious from there. He said his criteria have always run a little different from most coaches’, and Dallas met every one.

“This one checks all the boxes,” May said.

He framed Ujiri’s presence as a draw in itself, comparing the executive’s standing to the game’s biggest names.

“Masai is one of those people in sports where you only have to say one name, like Coop is going to be, or LeBron,” May said. “Anytime you report to someone whose first name immediately commands respect, that’s special.”

May said the state of college basketball was not the main reason he left, even as the sport grows more complicated. He said the people in the building drove the decision, and he thanked his wife and three sons for the part they have played in his career, calling them more responsible for his success than he is.

Dusty May on His Conversation With Kyrie Irving

May said he has already spoken with Kyrie Irving, who is working back from the torn ACL that cost him all of last season. He framed earning a future Hall of Famer’s trust as something straightforward.

“Yes, I spoke to Kyrie last week,” May said. “How do you earn his trust? By being yourself and working like crazy for him every single day.”

May said he intends to lean on Irving early as a first-time NBA coach.

“Kyrie knows what it takes to win a championship, so as a first-time NBA coach, I’m going to lean on him in a lot of areas,” May said. “Someone as intelligent as he is is going to bring a lot to the table for all of us.”

He went on to describe what Irving means to him.

“He’s one of the greatest point guards to ever play our game,” May said. “He’s a jazz musician, and I can’t wait to be around him every day and help him on his journey.”

What Drew Dusty May to the Dallas Mavericks Roster

May said the Dallas job checked every box, starting with the people running it. He met with Ujiri, Schmitz, and Dumont, and came away convinced the partnership was healthy.

“The first time I met with Masai, Mike and Patrick, you could immediately feel the sincerity,” May said. “They’re hardworking people. They have great camaraderie among themselves, so I felt like it was a very healthy relationship.”

At the top of the roster sits Flagg, and May said that kind of young star is harder to find than people assume.

“A superstar who plays hard, cares about his teammates and is incredibly unselfish, those things aren’t that common, according to people around the league,” May said.

From there he ran through the veterans, pointing to P.J. Washington and the championship pedigree of Irving and Klay Thompson.

“P.J. has done it at a high level,” May said. “Kyrie obviously has won a championship. Klay Thompson has won championships.”

May said he believes in the younger group too, singling out Max Christie and Dereck Lively II, whom he called “D-Live.”

“I think Max Christie is on pace for a breakout year,” May said.

He kept circling back to the chance to win.

“Masai said we’re here to win,” May said. “We’re going to start building a championship foundation today.”

May said the roster’s makeup is what makes that realistic.

“When you have the nucleus we have, you can figure out a way to overachieve until you become the best team,” May said. “That’s a process, but I really believe in this group.”

The appeal was not only basketball. May said Dallas’ quality of life mattered, down to an airport that lets his wife visit their sons without layovers, and he acknowledged the draw of a state with no income tax.

“Like I said, I have some unusual criteria,” May said. “The no-income-tax state doesn’t hurt either.”

A Cooper Flagg Story: ‘He Only Knows One Way’

May said he did not see much of Flagg as a recruit, since coaching at Florida Atlantic kept him in different gyms. He offered one story from last spring instead.

A former Michigan player had signed with Flagg’s agency and trained alongside him before the draft, and May went to watch a couple of the workouts at a small gym in Los Angeles.

“After the first one, I called my staff and said Danny Wolf had a real chance to be NBA-ready the following year,” May said. He said an assistant asked what he meant, and the answer traced back to Flagg.

“Danny was battling Cooper every day, and Cooper approached every possession like it was Game 7 of the NBA Finals,” May said. He said the daily reps against Flagg accelerated Wolf’s readiness for the league.

May said that motor is simply who Flagg is.

“He only knows one way,” May said.

Dusty May Reunites With Morez Johnson Jr.

Hours after the hire became official, Dallas used the No. 9 pick on Michigan forward Morez Johnson Jr., a 6-9 defender who made the All-Big Ten Defensive Team and reunited with the coach who led him to a title. May said he had no warning it was coming.

“Honestly, I had no idea we were drafting Morez,” May said. “Masai texted me right after they made the selection, but I didn’t even see the message.”

He said the front office had spent days before the hire pressing him on prospects and on his own Michigan players, and he tried to answer honestly so each one landed in the right spot. He said he was glad it ended with one of his three.

The pick also settled a running joke from Ann Arbor. Yaxel Lendeborg, a teammate who went 11th to Golden State in the same draft, had needled Johnson as May’s favorite player.

“Well, I’m on Morez’s team now, so he’s definitely my favorite,” May said. “Those guys had a lot of friendly banter about that, but the beautiful part of it was there was never any envy or jealousy.”

May said he wants that same dynamic in Dallas, with players promoting one another instead of competing inside their own locker room. To explain what he values in Johnson, he went back to a saying his Michigan staff repeated before games.

“Before every game at Michigan, our coaching staff had a saying: ‘We have Morez, and they don’t,’” May said. He said the line meant the Wolverines planned to play harder and more physical than whoever they faced.

May said Michigan’s offense stalled early last season until the Players Era Tournament, and a film session with Johnson became the turning point. He told the forward someone needed to become the connector and give himself up for the team, and Johnson took it further than asked.

“He probably should have looked to score more often,” May said. “Instead, he became completely consumed with doing whatever the team needed to win.”

May said Johnson will check a lot of boxes in Dallas, even if he cannot yet say which ones.

“I can’t tell you exactly which ones yet because we don’t know everything this team is going to need,” May said. “But whatever it needs, that’s what he’ll do, and he’ll do it with a great attitude.”

How Dusty May Plans to Build the Dallas Mavericks’ System

Asked what parts of his approach translate to the NBA, May pointed to flexibility.

“Our adaptability is what translates the most,” May said. He said his staff will study the roster and design the system around what the players do best, rather than forcing a fixed style.

“We’re not going to be married to anything on either side of the ball,” May said. “We’re going to continuously try to find the best way for this group to do things.”

The roster gives him size to work with. Asked whether he would lean on bigger lineups featuring Flagg, Johnson, Lively, and Daniel Gafford, May said the priority is being ready for any kind of game.

“We have two goals,” May said. “One is to be enjoyable to watch so our fans can be proud of the way we play. The other is to make sure we’re equipped to win any type of game.”

May said winning a regular-season shootout, a defensive slugfest, or a playoff grind each demands something different, which is why versatility matters.

“So yes, there will be times we play bigger than most teams,” May said. He noted that his Florida Atlantic teams once played one of the smallest lineups in the country, with four guards and a center, and said he molds the scheme to the personnel.

Dusty May Sees Contention Coming ‘Sooner Than Later’

Asked how quickly Dallas can turn into a playoff team and eventually a contender, May did not set a ceiling.

“I think sooner than later,” May said. He pointed to veterans who have delivered in big moments and young players he believes are on the verge of breakthroughs.

He said the formula comes down to how the group plays together.

“If we’re all committed to playing incredibly unselfish basketball, competing at the highest level, sharing success and caring about each other, then we’ll surpass expectations,” May said.

He acknowledged the timeline depends on health, then pointed back to the staff he plans to build.

“It’s going to take health and some other things, but I know one thing,” May said. “We’ll put together a staff that’s going to be here every single day serving our players and helping them become the absolute best they can be.”

The Global Game That Shaped Dusty May

May traced his basketball identity to the international game, and to a friendship with Schmitz that predates Dallas. He said the two crossed paths scouting in Tallinn, Estonia, and Bratislava, Slovakia, long before either reached the NBA.

“Mike and I go way back,” May said. He said the style he wants to play took root at the 2002 World Championships in Indianapolis, watching teams like Argentina and a Yugoslavia squad featuring Vlade Divac.

“I saw this beautiful brand of basketball,” May said. “From then on, I was hooked on the global game.”

May said the COVID-19 shutdown gave him time to refine that vision at Florida Atlantic, when he spent the pause on video calls with coaches around the world building an identity and philosophy his teams later adopted.

From Bob Knight to the NBA

May’s road to Dallas started as a student manager for Bob Knight at Indiana. He said he played Division II basketball for one year, did not enjoy it, and assumed his ceiling was coaching high school in his home state, like his own coach.

“I went to work for Coach Knight with every intention of becoming a high school coach,” May said. He said he learned at Indiana that he could build a college career without having played at the highest level, which changed his path.

The lessons did not surface right away.

“As an assistant coach, I don’t think I relied on a lot of those lessons over a 20-year period,” May said. “But the moment I became a head coach, I immediately found myself going back to the lessons I learned from him every day.”

May said the NBA was never the dream growing up, and that having children with his wife, Anna, shifted his ambition toward enjoying the work rather than climbing as fast as possible. He called Monday almost too big to have imagined, while noting he prepared for years by visiting NBA teams.

Asked about his biggest influence, May credited his players more than any mentor.

“The biggest influence has probably been the players I’ve coached,” May said. “I’ve learned so much from intelligent, hardworking players because I’m curious and inquisitive by nature.”

He pointed to his three Michigan draftees from this year’s lottery, Johnson, Lendeborg, and Aday Mara, as players who each taught him something significant about the game.

He said he is a piece of every coach he has worked for, and called his philosophy a compilation of time spent around driven people.

Dusty May’s First Days and the Free-Agency Picture

May said his first days in Dallas have gone toward building a staff and evaluating players, with free agency about to open. He said leaving college also meant leaving recruiting behind, and that the draft gave him closure on his Michigan run.

“I bought a one-way ticket to Dallas,” May said. He said the front office has asked his read on players he has coached, competed against, or watched over the years, and that any additions or subtractions will come from that kind of information-gathering.

“I’m here to coach our players as well as I can,” May said.

Dusty May on Building His Coaching Staff

May said his staff will blend college and NBA backgrounds and could keep members of the previous group, answering a question about its makeup with, “yes, yes, yes and yes.”

“There’s going to be a little bit of a college flavor,” May said. “There’s certainly going to be NBA experience. There will be some retention.”

May tied that openness to holdovers to a habit he has carried into past jobs, leaning on staffers who knew the building before he arrived.

“Whenever you take a new job, you want to learn from the people who were there before you,” May said.

He said the biggest adjustment from college is the sheer size of an NBA staff and the manpower it allows, and that he wants every hire to complement the others under a shared value system, without egos. A Summer League coach has not been finalized, with a couple of candidates still in the mix.

Ujiri said the franchise would back whatever group May assembles, describing his new coach as collaborative and someone who has already hired at the highest level.

“Everybody he brings around him is going to have our support, and wherever we can help, we’ll gladly do it,” Ujiri said.

Ujiri kept returning to the traits that sold him on the hire.

“He’s about winning,” Ujiri said. “He’s about work, accountability and leadership. He’s passionate about teaching the game.”

Why Dusty May Believes the College-to-NBA Jump Will Work

College coaches have not always translated to the NBA, and May was asked why he expects to. He gave two reasons, arguing the college and pro games have converged, with name, image and likeness money turning college rosters into something close to professional operations while the NBA itself has skewed younger, and pointing to coaches who already made the leap.

“I look at coaches like Mark Daigneault as college coaches. I look at Quin Snyder as a college coach,” May said. He later added Billy Donovan to the list and noted that those success stories are not always framed that way, because the wins did not come right away.

May said the NIL era served as its own preparation, putting him in charge of paid players who brought professional-level demands even before he reached the NBA. He said the college, NBA, and G League games now look similar when played in a modern style.

What gives him the most confidence, he said, is the locker room he walked into and the people he will work with every day.

May steps into a roster anchored by Flagg and a front office that has already reshaped itself around him, with Irving working back from a torn ACL and much of the rotation behind Flagg still unsettled as free agency opens.

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