The 2026 NBA Draft was supposed to be the kind where you almost had to try to screw up. AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, Cameron Boozer, Caleb Wilson. That top tier was historically deep. Teams picking in the lottery had a real chance to land a future cornerstone. Most of them did.
And then there were the Dallas Mavericks.
Dallas went into draft night with two first-round picks. They left with one new player and a whole lot of head-scratching. The pick at No. 9 was Morez Johnson Jr., a big man out of Michigan who just won a national title. On paper, it wasn’t a disaster. Johnson is a hard worker, plays with high energy, and can protect the rim. He also reconnects with his college coach Dusty May, who Dallas just hired to run the team. There’s a story there. A feel-good connection.
But feel-good doesn’t win in the Western Conference.
The problem is that this draft class was loaded precisely because of its top nine prospects. Scouts around the league agreed there was a clear drop-off after those nine names. And here’s the thing: Johnson wasn’t considered one of those nine by most evaluators. The Mavs passed on Nate Ament, a wing who is still growing, can score from anywhere, and has a much higher ceiling. Ament is the kind of pick you swing on when you’re trying to build around a young star. Instead, Dallas went with a safe, limited player who might top out as a role player.
Johnson’s offensive game is a concern. He can finish lobs and clean up misses. He runs the floor well. But his post scoring is not where you want it to be for a lottery pick. He showed flashes of a 3-point shot at Michigan, but with the deeper NBA arc, that could vanish entirely. If he can’t stretch the floor, what exactly is he giving you that you can’t find cheaper?
Then there’s the roster fit. Cooper Flagg is the franchise player in Dallas. He mostly plays the four. That’s where Johnson played in college. Flagg can slide to small forward, sure, but then you’re still trying to find minutes for P.J. Washington, who is under contract longer than anyone else on the team. Johnson can play center too, but Dallas already has Dereck Lively and Daniel Gafford splitting time there. Lively has dealt with injuries, but he’s still part of the core.
The Mavs have too many big bodies and not enough shooting or playmaking. Even with Kyrie Irving returning from injury, that hole remains. Johnson just makes the roster more unbalanced. It almost feels like the front office took him to make the new coach happy, prioritizing a reunion over actual team need. That’s a dangerous way to use a top-ten pick in a draft that deep.
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