DALLAS (AP) — The Dallas Mavericks lured Dusty May away from national champion Michigan just in time for the NBA draft.
Then they selected one of their new coach's players with the No. 9 overall pick in the first round Tuesday night.
“The Michigan Mavs,” forward/center Morez Johnson Jr. said moments after the selection was announced in New York — and less than two hours after Mavericks president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri said he wasn't concerned
about the timing of May's hiring as it related to the draft. Ujiri added that of course the club would welcome the new coach's input.
“He’ll be involved because he’s a college coach,” said Ujiri, whose team also had the final pick of the first round at No. 30. “He has interaction with his players. We want to know as much information as we can on these players.”
The Mavericks officially announced the hiring of May a few hours before the draft. Dallas also has the 48th overall pick in the second round Wednesday night.
May is making the jump to the NBA less than three months after leading Michigan to its first NCAA championship since 1989. He had a 64-13 record in two years with the Wolverines, including a 34-3 season that ended with a 69-63 victory over UConn in the national title game.
The Mavericks made their choice to replace Jason Kidd official on the same day they added Johnson in the next step of building around 2025 No. 1 pick and reigning Rookie of the Year Cooper Flagg, who turns 20 in December.
The 20-year-old Johnson averaged 13.1 points and 7.3 rebounds as a sophomore with Michigan after spending his freshman season at Illinois.
“It’s a different ballgame with NIL in college. It’s like a professional league,” said Ujiri, who let Kidd go about two weeks after getting hired by the Mavericks in May. “Many things I think translate in some kind of way. I look at the style of play, big players, how he sees the game. And then I look at the person. Incredible person.”
The 49-year-old May's title with Michigan came three years after he led Florida Atlantic to its only Final Four appearance. The Wolverines won the Big Ten Tournament in his first season after he inherited a team that went 8-24 under Juwan Howard. It was the school’s lowest win total since going 7-20 in 1981-82.
“While we are disappointed to see Dusty leave Michigan, we are deeply grateful to the May family for the lasting impact they have made on our program and our university,” Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel said in a statement announcing Mike Boynton as May's interim replacement.
May’s record in his last four college seasons was 124-26, an .827 winning percentage that was third best in all of major college men’s basketball over that span behind Houston’s Kelvin Sampson (.861) and Duke’s Jon Scheyer (.832). His overall college record is 190-82.
“This is one of the most respected franchises in professional sports, with passionate fans, a talented roster, and a clear commitment to building a championship organization,” May said in the news release announcing his hiring.
May spent 21 years in the college ranks after the Indiana native first served as a student manager for the Hoosiers and coach Bob Knight while he was in school there from 1996-2000. Florida, UAB and Murray State were among his stops as an assistant before debuting as a head coach with Florida Atlantic in 2018-19.
“He's somebody who came up in a really tough way, video coordinator, assistant coach, and how he's developed himself,” Ujiri said. “He's worked everywhere. He's coach small teams, big teams.”
Moving on from Kidd was the last part of putting the ill-fated Luka Doncic trade behind the Dallas franchise for good.
Nico Harrison, the engineer of the trade that brought the oft-injured Anthony Davis from the Los Angeles Lakers, was fired as general manager in November after the team started slowly in 2025-26. The Mavericks missed the playoffs for the second year in a row since reaching the NBA Finals and losing to Boston.
Doncic and Kyrie Irving were the key players in that deep playoff run in 2024, two years after Doncic also reached the Western Conference finals with a mostly different supporting cast.
Irving remains on the roster amid lingering questions about his future after missing all of last season. Irving tore the ACL in his left knee in March of last year, a month after the Doncic trade.
Ujiri, who is also the team's alternate governor, hired Mike Schmitz as GM soon after his arrival. Schmitz, a former draft analyst for ESPN, had been the assistant GM in Portland. Now Ujiri and Schmitz have teamed up on the coaching change.
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