Masai Ujiri didn’t just pick Dusty May because of those two deep tournament runs. The Mavericks president saw something specific in Chicago that made him think this college coach could work in the NBA.
Dallas hired May on Monday in a move that caught a lot of people off guard. He’s leaving behind an eight-year college career that included a Final Four appearance with Florida Atlantic in 2023 and a national championship with Michigan in 2026. That’s about as good as a college résumé gets right now.
But Ujiri’s reasoning goes deeper than wins and losses. He watched May at the predraft camp in Chicago and talked to people around the game. What he heard changed how he thought about the jump from college to the pros.
“Dusty stood out in many ways,” Ujiri told reporter Mike Curtis. “I saw him in Chicago in the predraft camp and observed him. Talking to people and it’s a different ball game with NIL and college and how you operate with youth. It’s almost like a professional league in college. Many things translate.”
That’s the key line right there. Ujiri sees modern college basketball as basically a pro league already. Between name, image and likeness deals and the transfer portal, coaches are managing rosters more like general managers than traditional recruiters. May has been doing that for years.
What May walks into with the Mavericks
Dallas is coming off a rough season. They went 26-56 after making the NBA Finals in 2024. That fall led to Jason Kidd getting fired after five seasons. The franchise only made the playoffs twice under Kidd, in 2022 and 2024.
The Mavs have Cooper Flagg as their cornerstone now. He’s the kind of young talent that gives a rebuilding team hope. The plan is to build through the draft and free agency to get back into contention.
May’s track record suggests he can develop young players. He turned a Florida Atlantic program into a national story. He won a title at Michigan. Ujiri is betting that same ability to build culture and maximize talent will work with professional players.
It’s not a typical hire. NBA teams usually pull from the assistant coach pool or recycle former head coaches. May is something different. And Ujiri is fine with that because he sees the college game changing fast enough that the old distinctions don’t mean as much anymore.
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