DALLAS — Dusty May had friends in the NBA coaching community long before he chose to leave Michigan to become the Dallas Mavericks’ head coach last month.

May has a relationship with Atlanta Hawks coach Quin Snyder dating to Snyder’s days in charge at Missouri from 1999 to 2006. May has also known Oklahoma City Thunder coach Mark Daigneault since Daigneault was an assistant at Florida from 2010 to 2014.

One of the things May heard about life in the NBA was how rare it is to work with a player like Cooper Flagg.

“A superstar who plays hard, who cares about his teammates, who is incredibly unselfish — those things aren’t that common, according to others,” May said Monday.

Flagg was sitting about 50 feet away when May made those comments. The NBA’s reigning Rookie of the Year was one of a handful of Mavericks players who were visible on the team’s practice court to watch May meet with Dallas-area media for the first time.

May explained that he first heard about Flagg when he was coaching at Florida Atlantic. Flagg was starting to make a name for himself as a high school prospect. Flagg spent a year at Nokomis Regional High in Maine and then two years at Montverde Academy in Florida. He was so good that ESPN rated him as the No. 1 player in the 2024 class, even though Flagg elected to reclassify and skip a year of high school entirely.

May understood that it wasn’t realistic for him to attract a blue-chip prospect like Flagg to Florida Atlantic.

“When you’re coaching at FAU, and guys like Cooper are playing in one gym, you go to another gym and find some other guys,” May said.

Flagg chose to play at Duke and dominated college basketball as a freshman. He averaged 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.4 blocks while helping lead the Blue Devils to a 35-4 record. Flagg won the men’s Naismith College Player of the Year award and was a no-brainer selection at No. 1 for the Mavericks in last year’s NBA Draft.

Former Mavericks coach Jason Kidd decided early last season to play Flagg, a natural forward, at point guard. Flagg admitted that it was a difficult transition, but as the season progressed, he began to look more comfortable getting the Mavericks into their offense.

When asked Monday how he planned to use Flagg, May said simply, “Cooper plays all over the court.”

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The Mavericks’ moves this offseason suggest that their new power structure of president Masai Ujiri, general manager Mike Schmitz and May values three things in particular: positional size, versatility and competitiveness.

The Mavericks chose the 6-foot-9 Morez Johnson Jr. with the No. 9 pick last month and then on Wednesday traded for Santi Aldama, a 7-foot stretch big man who spent the first five seasons of his career with the Memphis Grizzlies.

Johnson was one of the most impactful defensive players in all of college basketball last season. Before games, May said that Michigan’s coaching staff developed a habit of huddling up and reminding themselves to be confident because Johnson was on their team.

“As a staff, we would … say, ‘We have ‘Rez, and they don’t,’” May said. “Meaning that we were going to play harder and with more physicality than anyone we were going to play against.”

Johnson’s presence means the Mavericks will have the option of playing a switch-heavy defensive scheme, while the addition of Aldama will allow Dallas to go to a five-out look on offense. Aldama is a productive and proven 3-point shooter who converted 35 percent of his 3s on nearly five attempts per game last season. Aldama has averaged at least one 3-point make per contest in each of the last four years.

May said that a goal of his is to be able to win “any type of game.”

“A regular-season shootout, a knockdown slugfest or a playoff slugfest,” May said. “With that, you need lineup versatility. You need a deep roster. And you need guys who really care about playing off each other.”

Dusty May and Morez Johnson, the Mavericks’ No. 9 pick last month, know each other very well. (Rick Osentoski / Imagn Images)

The Mavericks likely aren’t done making moves this summer. There aren’t enough minutes to go around to all of the power forwards and centers on their roster. Besides Johnson and Aldama, Dallas has P.J. Washington, Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively II under contract. It’s possible the Mavericks could consolidate their rotation of bigs to get more guard help.

Kyrie Irving, who will step back into his role as the Mavericks’ starting point guard this fall after missing all of last season due to knee surgery, turns 35 in March. The Mavericks have an obvious need for an additional ballhandler behind him.

Even if Dallas’ roster is a work in progress, May sounds confident that it won’t take too long for the Mavericks to get back to the playoffs with Flagg as their centerpiece.

“I think sooner than later,” May said.