Dallas Picked the Wrong Michigan Guy. Here’s Who Dusty May Should Have Grabbed.

The Dallas Mavericks had two picks in the first round of the 2026 NBA Draft, and a mandate that felt almost inevitable. Pair new head coach Dusty May with one of his former Michigan players. The Wolverines just won a national title and three of May’s guys went in the lottery. So the logic was there.

At pick nine, Dallas took Morez Johnson Jr., a 6-foot-9 forward with a motor that doesn’t quit and a defensive reputation that should keep him in the league for a while. He’s not flashy. He’s not a star. But he’s going to play. Just not necessarily a ton of minutes in Dallas.

And that’s the problem.

The Mavericks already have Cooper Flagg — last year’s No. 1 overall pick — at power forward. Flagg can slide to the three, sure, but P.J. Washington is still on the roster through 2030 and needs rotation run. Johnson can play center too, but Dereck Lively and Daniel Gafford form arguably the league’s best two-man frontcourt combo. Where exactly does Johnson fit? He’s a play-now prospect walking into a frontcourt that’s already crowded and under contract.

Aday Mara, the 7-foot-3 Spanish center who went three picks later, would’ve run into the same problem. Lively has had some injury scares, sure, but the organization still sees him as a cornerstone. Mara would have been stuck behind him and Gafford.

So who should Dallas have picked?

Yaxel Lendeborg. And honestly, it’s not that close.

Lendeborg Was the Versatile Wing Dallas Actually Needs

Lendeborg went 11th overall, two spots after Johnson. He’s a true wing — something the Mavericks don’t have enough of — and he might be the most versatile player in the entire draft class. He scores inside. He facilitates. He rebounds. He guards on the wing and in the post. And in his final college season, he actually improved as a shooter despite playing on a Michigan team with brutal spacing.

That part matters. Dallas has shooting and spacing concerns. Lendeborg spent a whole season carrying the three-point burden for a team that couldn’t spread the floor. He knows what that feels like. He’s also 24 years old, which made him arguably the most NBA-ready prospect in the draft. He’s not a project. He’s a chess piece — and May used him that way all the way to a national title.

Would Lendeborg have been a perfect fit? Maybe not. The Mavericks’ roster is weird right now, and it’s fair to wonder if they were reaching for any Michigan player just to make their new coach happy. Brayden Burries, Nate Ament, Labaron Philon, and Cameron Carr were all still on the board when Dallas picked. Any of them would’ve made more sense from a roster construction standpoint.

But if May was going to take one of his own guys, he should’ve taken the one who could actually play right away at a position of need. Lendeborg was right there. The Mavericks went another direction. And it’s a decision that could take a while to explain away.