Eighteen months ago, it was hard to imagine Dallas Mavericks fans feeling genuinely optimistic about the future. If you’ve followed my work for the better part of a decade, you know how serious a statement that is, because one thing I’ve never had anyone tell me is that I’m not optimistic enough. The baffling decision to trade Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers didn’t just pull the rug out from underneath the franchise. It fractured the trust between the organization and one of the NBA’s most
passionate fan bases. Every move that followed was viewed mostly with frustration instead of excitement. There was far more skepticism than there was hope. It was more than just losing Luka. A team that so many had invested so much into had all of a sudden completely lost its identity. It has taken several months of three-level organizational reconstruction to bring back a genuine sense of excitement and hope to the fan base, but the Mavericks are finally fully back on track. Cooper Flagg has the potential to be the best player in the NBA for the next decade-plus, and the roster has been filled out with intriguing young talent with upside. There is a clear sense of direction now that the two-timelines approach has been left behind. There are still questions that need to be answered, of course, but at least the hope and excitement that the fan base is feeling going into this season doesn’t feel forced like it did last year.
Here are five reasons why Mavericks fans should be excited about the 2026-27 season.
1. It Starts At The Top
On a surface level, saying the Mavs improved their front office wouldn’t seem like much, given how far the bar had been lowered by the end of the Nico Harrison era. Even with that being the case, though, it really feels like the Mavs hit it out of the park with the hirings of new president Masai Ujiri and general manager Mike Schmitz. That’s not to say that both of those guys are perfect NBA executives–Ujiri, despite his championship pedigree, had some questionable moves at the end of his Toronto Raptors tenure–but for the most part, both have an elite scouting eye for talent and are well-respected around the NBA. That last part might be just as important as identifying talent as the Mavs continue to build back toward being a championship contender again.
2. Coop’s Second-Year Leap
This one was a given, but if you’re a Mavs fan or even just a basketball fan, it’s hard not to be excited for what we could see from Flagg in year two. The reigning Rookie of the Year dazzled in his first season, averaging 21.0 points, 6.7 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 2.1 stocks while shooting 46.8 percent from the floor, and if there’s any player I wouldn’t be worried about having a potential “sophomore slump,” it would be Flagg.
Consider this: over the last 14 games of his rookie year when he played at least 30 minutes per game, Flagg averaged 25.8 points, 7.0 rebounds, 5.6 assists and 2.7 stocks. To me, that felt like an indicator of what Flagg’s overall stat line might look like during the 2026-27 season. I think it’s a reasonable expectation to have, given that he’s a gym rat and still just 19 years old–which is younger than nine of this year’s 14 NBA Draft lottery picks.
3. Intriguing Young Talent
The Mavs have an influx of new, young talent this year, and it starts with Morez Johnson Jr., who was the No. 9 overall pick for Dallas and is coming off an impressive sophomore year at Michigan that ended with a national championship. In 40 games for the Wolverines, Johnson averaged 13.1 points, 7.3 rebounds, 1.1 blocks and 0.7 steals per game while shooting 62.3 percent overall. The area Johnson might end up helping the Mavs the most, though, might not actually be within the stat sheet. His relentless energy, physicality and overall defensive influence will likely be felt from day one.
Two other additions I’m personally excited about are 20-year old Spanish guard Sergio De Larrea and 25-year-old Bosnian/Turkish sharpshooter Tarik Biberovic, both of whom Dallas acquired during this year’s draft. De Larrea opened a lot of eyes during the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas with his natural, Doncic-like feel for throwing lobs.
It was an extremely complicated situation for Biberovic to be bought out of his Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul contract in order to join the Mavs for this coming season, but it all got worked out, and now Dallas can find out if Biberovic’s 42.3-percent 3-point shooting over eight seasons in Europe can translate to the NBA.
Getting 25-year-old stretch-big Santi Aldama from the Memphis Grizzlies for essentially next to nothing via trade might end up being the most underrated Mavs move of the offseason before it’s said and done. One big area the Mavs were lacking in last season was floor spacing, and having a 7-footer who can do normal 7-footer things while also providing some floor spacing certainly helps the cause. Last season, Aldama averaged 14.0 points, 6.7 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 1.6 stocks while shooting 47.6 percent overall and 35.0 percent from deep. If you can’t beam ’em, trade for ’em. After years of giving the Mavs fits, here’s to hoping he can do the same against Mavs’ opponents.
One other addition to keep an eye on is Zaccharie Risacher. Some might not have super high hopes for him, at least when it comes to him living up to being the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft. However, just because he hasn’t lived up to that billing doesn’t mean he’s a bad player. At the end of the day, he’s a 21-year-old 6-8 wing coming off a season in which he shot 45.5 percent overall and 36.8 percent on 3s. The Mavs don’t need Risacher to be who the Hawks needed him to be; they just need him to be a serviceable role player. This was yet another low-risk, potentially high-reward move from the Mavs’ front office.
4. New and Hungry NBA Head Coach
It has yet to be seen how it will translate to the NBA, but the college game has been becoming more and more pro-like for the last several years, and I’d be shocked if Dusty May doesn’t become one of the better head coaches in the league over the next 3-5 years. May’s coming off winning a national championship with Michigan, and he’ll have some instant chemistry with Johnson, who was a major part of that Wolverines roster.
On paper, May checks all the boxes for what you want in an NBA head coach: championship pedigree, player development, offensive creativity, ability to build a strong culture, and a relatable personality. It also helps a lot when you start your NBA coaching career with Cooper Flagg as your franchise player. Helping Flagg develop into an MVP-caliber player and, hopefully, an NBA champion as well, may ultimately become May’s defining legacy. He has a long way to go to get to that point, but the potential is certainly there.
5. Kyrie is Back, Baby!
There are several returning players to be excited about, but a handful of them–PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford, for example–have been in trade rumors all summer, so who knows if they’ll actually be on the roster by the time the season opener rolls around. But above all, the returning player everyone should be most excited about is Kyrie Irving.
Irving missed the entire 2026-27 season due to tearing his ACL the season prior, but he’s reportedly made a full recovery and is 100 percent ready to roll for this coming season. I mentioned earlier about how floor spacing was such a grind for the Mavs last year, and not having Irving on the floor played a big part in that. During his 128 games played in Dallas over a three-year span, Irving averaged 25.5 points, 4.9 rebounds and 5.1 assists while having near-50/40/90 shooting splits–49.0 percent overall, 40.4 percent from deep and 91.7 percent from the free-throw line. Even if he can come back and give the Mavs 75 percent of that kind of production, it will be a massive shot in the arm for this offense.
Obviously, we don’t know how many games Irving will end up playing this year–the last time he played more than 60 games in a season was in 2018-19. But if he can find a way to play 55 games or more, I feel like that, in addition to Flagg taking a big Year 2 leap and all the other offseason additions, will have the Mavs in a good position to surprise a lot of critics by being a playoff team in 2026-27. The offseason is a time when everyone across the league believes they can do something special, but the Mavs have real reasons to believe they can take a decent-sized jump this year due to making some great moves at every level of the organization since last November.
Are the Mavs so back? Maybe not all the way, but it’s sure starting to feel like getting to that point sooner rather than later is inevitable.
