<\/p>\n
New Dallas Mavericks team president Masai Ujiri (right) addressed an introductory news conference with team governor Patrick Dumont on Tuesday, May 5, 2026, in Dallas.<\/p>\n
Smiley N. Pool\/The Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n
I have been to news conferences where the local team went for the splashy hire with the Super Bowl-Stanley Cup-World Series pedigree. I\u2019m talking John Hart with the Rangers, Bill\u00a0Parcells with the Cowboys and the return of Ken Hitchcock with the Stars. Of those three, only Parcells was, in any way, triumphant and he didn\u2019t win a single playoff game with Dallas.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t mean the Mavericks went the wrong direction Tuesday. The hiring of Masai <\/a>Ujir<\/a>i \u2014 successful as a GM in Denver, championship ring-winning GM in Toronto<\/a> \u2014 is the best step forward this club could possibly make heading into a turbulent time. Whatever governor Patrick Dumont said in that five-hour lunch in Miami in December that produced an agreement for Ujiri to become President of Basketball Operations here, the words were well chosen.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Ujiri seems, in fact, to be the perfect hire for the impossible job. That\u2019s what a team with one high lottery pick on the horizon and few reasonable trade assets has to offer. Oh, and the Mavericks had one other card to play, and apparently that\u2019s the one that got Ujiri, taking a year off from his long time in Toronto, back into the league.<\/p>\n “When I met with [Dumont], I said, \u2018You\u2019ve got Wembanyama the next 15 years. You\u2019ve got Luka the next 10-12-15 years. You\u2019ve got Anthony Edwards the next 10-12-15 years. You\u2019ve got Shai the next 10-12-15 years. Who else? You\u2019ve got Jokic the next 5-7 years.<\/p>\n \u2018You have to convince me I\u2019ve got to beat all those guys [in the West]. You\u2019ve gotta come with something in your pocket, OK?\u2019 And, in his pocket, he had Cooper Flagg.”<\/p>\n Make Dallas News a preferred source so your search results prioritize writing by actual people, not AI.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n RELATED:\u00a0Masai Ujiri introduced as Mavericks’ president, alternate governor<\/a><\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n New Dallas Mavericks team president Masai Ujiri carries his son Amani, 5, on his shoulders as he departs with his family after an introductory news conference on Tuesday, May 5, 2026, in Dallas.<\/p>\n Smiley N. Pool\/The Dallas Morning News New Dallas Mavericks team president Masai Ujiri (left) and team governor Patrick Dumont arrive for an introductory news conference on Tuesday, May 5, 2026, in Dallas.<\/p>\n Smiley N. Pool\/The Dallas Morning News New Dallas Mavericks team president Masai Ujiri poses for a photos during an introductory news conference on Tuesday, May 5, 2026, in Dallas.<\/p>\n Smiley N. Pool\/The Dallas Morning News Dallas Mavericks team governor Patrick Dumont (left) and new team president Masai Ujiri pose for a photo with a basketball during an introductory news conference on Tuesday, May 5, 2026, in Dallas.<\/p>\n Smiley N. Pool\/The Dallas Morning News New Dallas Mavericks team president Masai Ujiri comforts his son Amani, 5, during an introductory news conference on Tuesday, May 5, 2026, in Dallas.<\/p>\n Smiley N. Pool\/The Dallas Morning News Dallas Mavericks team governor Patrick Dumont (right) listens as new team president Masai Ujiri addresses an introductory news conference on Tuesday, May 5, 2026, in Dallas.<\/p>\n Smiley N. Pool\/The Dallas Morning News New Dallas Mavericks team president Masai Ujiri lifts his son Amani, 5, as his wife Ramatu Ujiri, looks on with their children Zahara, 12, and Masai, Jr, 10, after he was introduced during a news conference on Tuesday, May 5, 2026, in Dallas.<\/p>\n Smiley N. Pool\/The Dallas Morning News New Dallas Mavericks team president Masai Ujiri (right) and team governor Patrick Dumont address an introductory news conference on Tuesday, May 5, 2026, in Dallas.<\/p>\n Smiley N. Pool\/The Dallas Morning News New Dallas Mavericks team president Masai Ujiri addresses an introductory news conference on Tuesday, May 5, 2026, in Dallas.<\/p>\n Smiley N. Pool\/The Dallas Morning News New Dallas Mavericks team president Masai Ujiri is congratulated after an introductory news conference on Tuesday, May 5, 2026, in Dallas.<\/p>\n Smiley N. Pool\/The Dallas Morning News New Dallas Mavericks team president Masai Ujiri (left) and team governor Patrick Dumont arrive for an introductory news conference on Tuesday, May 5, 2026, in Dallas.<\/p>\n Smiley N. Pool\/The Dallas Morning News New Dallas Mavericks team president Masai Ujiri lifts his son Amani, 5, as his wife Ramatu Ujiri, looks on with their children Zahara, 12, and Masai, Jr, 10, after he was introduced during a news conference on Tuesday, May 5, 2026, in Dallas.<\/p>\n Smiley N. Pool\/The Dallas Morning News New Dallas Mavericks team president Masai Ujiri (facing) hugs team CEO Rick Welts after an introductory news conference on Tuesday, May 5, 2026, in Dallas.<\/p>\n Smiley N. Pool\/The Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n The cornerstone is in place. The past is the past. That was the message Ujiri delivered over a 35-minute news conference that bordered on performance much of the time. That\u2019s why after thanking Dumont and his family for helping him make this decision, the first thing\u00a0Ujiri said was, “Listen, I hope to bring calm.”<\/p>\n We are 15 months removed from the Luka Doncic-for-Anthony Davis trade. Luka is long gone, his team in the second round of the playoffs even if he\u2019s not playing. Davis is gone, too, for that matter, and one wonders if Ujiri would have seen him as a potential piece to play alongside Flagg rather than a big salary ready to be jettisoned for next to nothing because of his injury history.<\/p>\n But Ujiri was not interested in digging up this franchise\u2019s past beyond the fact he recognizes there\u2019s a championship banner hanging in American Airlines Center, and the club needs a second one.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Speaking of Luka, he said, “He\u2019s gone. He\u2019s a Hall of Fame player. He will always be a Maverick. But we really have to move on. It\u2019s not for me to criticize what anybody else is doing. It\u2019s for me to criticize what I\u2019m doing. If I continue harping on that [Luka trade], then I think all of you are going to be asking me what I\u2019m doing.”<\/p>\n From the sound of things, Ujiri plans to study every aspect of the organization. He even mentioned the club needs to show some medical improvement in its understanding of players, an apparent reference to more fallout from the Nico Era<\/a>. Interestingly, he stopped short of saying Jason Kidd would coach the Mavericks when they take the floor in October. But when pressed on that, he encouraged the media to study his history.<\/p>\n “I\u2019ve done the same thing everywhere I\u2019ve been in this position,” he said. “I went to Denver, George Karl was there for [another] three years. Went to Toronto, inherited Coach [Dwane]\u00a0Casey, he was there for five years. I\u2019m going to hear Coach Kidd out on his thoughts on everything and follow a lot of what he\u2019s saying because some of that stuff here, I don\u2019t know. I have to follow like a process here.”<\/p>\n The chance to see how Kyrie Irving at 34 fits with Flagg at 19 apparently intrigues Ujiri more than anything. He talked at length about what that might look like. Then again, Ujiri is an experienced and successful GM, so he might have been doing nothing more than driving up the price on Irving this summer.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Regardless, Dumont, who hadn\u2019t been on the job long enough to stop Nico Harrison from chasing a pie-in-the-sky dream with Davis, has figured out what he and what this franchise needs. There was a lot of speculation that a team with Flagg in the middle but so little else around him, and so much damage already rendered on the draft front after this season, would not be able to attract a major player to run the show.<\/p>\n By signing up, you agree to our Terms Of Use<\/a> and acknowledge that your information will be used as described in our Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n Dumont hired the biggest name available, a man with a track record of winning trades going either direction. He dispatched Carmelo Anthony in Denver and the Nuggets\u2019 record shot up enough to win Karl Coach of the Year honors. Then he dealt popular player DeMar DeRozen for Kawhi Leonard and brought Toronto a championship. He has been known to deliver solid draft picks, too, and the Mavericks find out Sunday how high this year\u2019s pick will be. It can fall to 11 or shoot skyward from the 8 position one more time.<\/p>\n Ujiri wanted Flagg for the Raptors last year. It did not happen. He has him now.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n His second chance and Dumont\u2019s seem to be aligned in a twist of fate that\u2019s just what this franchise ordered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Dallas Mavericks team president Masai Ujiri (right) addressed an introductory news conference with team governor Patrick Dumont…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2353,102,104,103,88840,91178,90065],"class_list":["post-280799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-commentary","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-tp-dallas-mavericks","tag-tp-cooper-flagg","tag-tp-patrick-dumont"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"image\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775031754_150_rawImage.jpg\" "\\"#\\"")
<\/p>\n