Incoming Dallas Mavericks president of basketball operations and alternate governor Masai Ujiri said in his introductory press conference on Tuesday that he wanted to bring “calm” to an organization beset by tumult in the year-plus before he was hired.
In a sit-down interview with team Chief Communication Officer Gina Miller later in the week, Ujiri preached “focus, purpose and an honest direction toward winning.”
Yea. Sign us up for some of that.
Listening to the man now in charge of the once proud
franchise that was submarined by previous leadership to the point of ethical (perhaps too ethical) tanking for much of the 2025-26 season, through his introductory presser and this latest interview, gives one the sense that he lives everything he talks about. He has a process to get there. Maybe most importantly, he’s done it before.
Ujiri says it, and he makes you believe he has a plan to make it happen. When he says he wants to bring calm, he says it in a measured tone. When he talks about talent evaluation, he brings with him a new incoming general manager whose ball-knowing acumen in recent years has been proven prescient. When he talks about purpose, he cites his years’ worth of work growing the game globally with Basketball Without Borders.
The skins are on the wall behind him, but he doesn’t want attention. He doesn’t just have a reputation for being a relationship guy. He’s spent his entire career in the game of basketball forging them across the globe.
He told several anecdotes during the interview that make his landing in Dallas sound like a little dose of cosmic kismet, even if he also admitted the plain truth up front that “if there weren’t issues [in Dallas], I wouldn’t be here talking to you.”
He’s forged connections with several longtime Mavericks through his time in scouting, from Kike Vandeweghe, who gave Ujiri his first full-time job in an NBA front office as a scout in Denver, to Donnie Nelson, who he met and competed with on the international scouting trail. He’s worked with Dirk Nowitzki and Steve Nash through his years at Basketball Without Borders, where he also connected with “a lot of the NBA players who came through like Shawn Bradley, Dirk Nowitzki, Shawn Marion, Kyrie [Irving] and Rolando Blackman.”
“This franchise has lived in me somehow, and then this happened so organically,” Ujiri said. “The global footprint of the Dallas Mavericks is right there. I’m proud to be associated with the growing up of Dirk in the league, with Steve Nash, all these guys that set the tone for where we were going, not only as a team, but as a league. This is a big part of our game, and I’m so proud that this organization was at the forefront of this.”
He also told a story about being at the NBA Draft lottery last year, as he and the Toronto Raptors hoped against hope, just like the Mavericks did, to move all the way up to the No. 1 overall selection and have the chance to grab hold of a special young talent he went back to over and over again during the interview.
“It’s a moment where we’re all human beings,” Ujiri said. “You feel it. You know what the odds are, but you still feel like you are the one. I saw [NBA Deputy Commissioner] Mark Tatum going up to the stage. From the angle I was sitting, I could see, when he got to nine. He was opening up the card and even before he said it, I saw the red [Raptors logo]. We got bumped. We fell. I get home, my kids,, ‘Papa, we didn’t get Cooper Flagg.’”
Fast forward to just over two weeks ago, when Ujiri had finalized his discussions with Mavericks’ governor Patrick Dumont to take the job at the head of Dallas’ front office.
“I told them at dinner,” Ujiri said. “And I’m telling you, they went wild. Cooper Flagg! Cooper! Cooper! It is crazy to me that it came like that, you know, full circle. What an honor, to come to this organization and have that gift. I know we’ve gone through a tough time as an organization, but we all have to really see this moment where we start to grow and show this kid that we are going to grow with you. We are going to support you, and this is the direction that we are going. We were blessed to have been given this kid.”
He talked about watching Flagg practice before the draft and being in awe of his footwork and his wingspan.
“They don’t come often. They really don’t. We have a generational talent here and we are going to do the best possible job here to give him a chance to bring championships to this city.”
And when he says it, you believe he has a plan to make it happen.
You can watch the full interview exclusively within the Mavs app on all iOS and Android devices.
