Masai Ujiri is a splashy name to fill the Dallas Mavericks’ president of basketball operations (and alternate governor) position, and one sure to spark endless fodder for debate for podcasters and basketball content creators.
Is Ujiri washed? Or is he the dose of stability that this franchise needs as the Mavericks stare down the task of building around Cooper Flagg? His 12 years heading up basketball operations for the Toronto Raptors, which ended one day after the 2025 NBA Draft after three straight
years missing the playoffs, offers definitive evidence both ways.
Ujiri was introduced as the Mavericks’ head man in a press conference on Tuesday at American Airlines Center, an affair that offered little to sway members of either camp.
“To come to this storied organization, the Dallas Mavericks, to come back to the NBA, it’s a blessing and I’m honored and humbled to have this very unique opportunity,” Ujiri said.
“There’s no other way to do this than winning,” he added, when asked for the first time about helping the organization move on from the tumult that started with trading Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers. “There’s a saying in Africa. When kings go, kings come. The king went, and we have a little prince here that we’re going to turn into a king, and I think we have to start thinking that way here.”
Lost in all the banter about what he learned during his year off, musings about coming up in the world of professional basketball and obligatory responses about the trade of Luka Dončić, which went down a full 15 months ago, while Ujiri was still leading the Raptors’ front office, was any clarity surrounding how decision-making will happen in this Mavericks’ front office.
Of course, he’ll be the final word on roster- and basketball-related decisions. He’s here to fill the role traditionally manned by a “general manager,” terminology that has apparently gone completely out of style in NBA circles these days. But he dodged questions about head coach Jason Kidd’s future with the franchise and mentioned co-interim general managers Matt Riccardi and Michael Finley exactly one time in the 35-minute nothing-burger of a press conference during a time where nothing but questions swirl all around the Mavericks.
To be clear, at both his previous posts as a GM-type guy, Ujiri kept the coach he was handed in place for at least three seasons. He kept George Karl in Denver for three seasons when he came on as general manager and vide president of basketball operations for the Nuggets in 2010. He kept Dwayne Casey in place for five seasons with the Raptors after joining that front office in 2013. His track record says Kidd will be the Mavericks’ coach for the 2026-27 season even if he side-stepped direct questions to that effect twice in Tuesday’s presser.
“I had a conversation with Jason Kidd yesterday,” Ujiri said the first time he was asked point-blank whether Kidd would remain in place next season. “I’m going to meet with Jason Kidd and hear his thoughts on everything. He’s done a great job. We’re going to look at this thing from head to toe and evaluate in every way that we can.”
He’s going to be in a million meetings in the next few days. He’s got to make informed decisions, and that takes time. That means evaluating everything and everyone on the basketball side of the organization. Stakes is high — too high to come in shooting from the hip. We get that.
But what we didn’t get from Tuesday’s introductory press conference was any definitive answer on how any of this is going to work moving forward. Without any clarity, we’re left clueless, without any sense as to whether this guy will effectively correct any of the CVS receipt full of problems the Mavericks face as they rebuild. Confidence lags behind clarity. Without any of the latter there is none of the former to be had.
Is Ujiri up to the task in Dallas? Your guess is as good as mine.
This lack of clarity is at least as much on the media assembled at the AAC as it is on Ujiri. Nobody cares who courted who more, team Governor Patrick Dumont or Ujiri. No one cares about the frank five-hour meeting the two shared. No one cares that it was only scheduled for an hour, but Dumont and Ujiri just genuinely liked staring lovingly into each other’s eyes so much that it turned into an all-day affair.
All of one question was asked about Riccardi and Finley’s future with the organization, and it was asked of Dumont, not Ujiri himself. Dumont’s answer was short and rote, with just a tinge of foreboding.
“I want to thank Matt and Fin for the work that they did across this year,” Dumont said. “They did phenomenal work. As Masai spoke about, he’s going to speak to everyone, and talk about the future of the organization, and we’ll go from there.”
Yeesh — I’d be polishing my resume if I were one of those two fellows after hearing that answer.
The central thesis of the presser was that, boy, we sure are glad we have Cooper Flagg. He sure is fun to watch and good as basketball. The rest is a huge question mark.
“The one difficult thing to find anywhere in sports is a generational player,” Ujiri said. “And we have one here. We’ve planted a flag(g) here. It is our job to continue to build the young players on this team. We have to figure it out and put them in the right situations to perform.”
Usiri and the Mavericks will have two more chances in the first round of the NBA Draft next month to put a couple more building blocks into place. Dumont can go on and on about how excited he is to have Ujiri at the top of his front-office food chain. The fans seem to be shrugging their shoulders, thoroughly unconvinced of anything, really.
