He cited the roster\u2019s healthy mixture of proven veterans and foundational young pieces, including Kyrie Irving, Dereck Lively II, P.J. Washington and Max Christie<\/a>.<\/p>\nNot to mention the benefits of living in Texas, he said, since it has two international airports and no state income tax. But one of the biggest draws, he said, was emerging superstar Cooper\u00a0Flagg, one of three Mavericks players who attended May\u2019s news conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never been in the\u00a0NBA, but I have a lot of friends in the league,\u201d May said. \u201cI\u2019ve studied the game. I\u2019ve been to training camps for years, and a superstar who plays hard, who cares about his teammates, who\u2019s incredibly unselfish, those things aren\u2019t that common, according to others.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jon Scheyer recruited Flagg to play at Duke when May was the head coach at Florida Atlantic, long before he transformed the program into a national title contender, which limited how much May could interact with the high school phenom.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWhen you\u2019re coaching at\u00a0FAU and guys like Cooper are playing in one gym, you go to another gym and find some other guys,\u201d May joked.<\/p>\n
May might be a neophyte\u00a0NBA head coach, but he arrives with 21 years of experience at the college level, including eight as a head coach. In six seasons with\u00a0FAU and two with Michigan, he built a 190-82 coaching record with four\u00a0NCAA tournament appearances and two Final Fours.<\/p>\n
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New Dallas Mavericks head coach Dusty May (right) arrives for his introductory press conference with President of Basketball Operations Masai Ujiri (left) at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, June 29, 2026.<\/p>\n
Tom Fox\/The Dallas Morning News![\"New]()
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New Dallas Mavericks head coach Dusty May was given a ceremonial basketball following an introductory press conference at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, June 29, 2026.<\/p>\n
Tom Fox\/The Dallas Morning News![\"Dallas]()
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Dallas Mavericks player Cooper Flagg (center) visits with new head coach Dusty May\u2019s sons Jack (left) and Charlie during an introductory press conference at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, June 29, 2026.<\/p>\n
Tom Fox\/The Dallas Morning News![\"New]()
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New Dallas Mavericks head coach Dusty May was introduced during an introductory press conference at the American Airlines Center in Dallas by President of Basketball Operations Masai Ujiri, June 29, 2026.<\/p>\n
Tom Fox\/The Dallas Morning News![\"New]()
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New Dallas Mavericks head coach Dusty May (center) posed for photos of his wife and sons (from left) Eli, Jack and Charlie following an introductory press conference at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, June 29, 2026.<\/p>\n
Tom Fox\/The Dallas Morning News![\"New]()
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New Dallas Mavericks head coach Dusty May responds to questions fro the media during an introductory press conference at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, June 29, 2026.<\/p>\n
Tom Fox\/The Dallas Morning News![\"Dallas]()
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Dallas Mavericks irst-round draft pick Morez Johnson Jr. (right) listens to new head coach Dusty May during an introductory press conference at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, June 29, 2026.<\/p>\n
Tom Fox\/The Dallas Morning News![\"Dallas]()
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Dallas Mavericks player Cooper Flagg listens to new head coach Dusty May during an introductory press conference at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, June 29, 2026.<\/p>\n
Tom Fox\/The Dallas Morning News![\"New]()
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New Dallas Mavericks head coach Dusty May\u2019s (left) family (from right) wife Anna May and sons Jack, Charlie and Eli listen during an introductory press conference at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, June 29, 2026.<\/p>\n
Tom Fox\/The Dallas Morning News![\"New]()
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New Dallas Mavericks head coach Dusty May\u2019s (left) family (from right) wife Anna May and sons Jack, Charlie and Eli listen during an introductory press conference at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, June 29, 2026.<\/p>\n
Tom Fox\/The Dallas Morning News![\"New]()
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New Dallas Mavericks head coach Dusty May (left) is congratulated on his new position by President of Basketball Operations Masai Ujiri during an introductory press conference at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, June 29, 2026.<\/p>\n
Tom Fox\/The Dallas Morning News![\"New]()
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New Dallas Mavericks head coach Dusty May (at table, left) is congratulated on his new position by President of Basketball Operations Masai Ujiri during an introductory press conference at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, June 29, 2026.<\/p>\n
Tom Fox\/The Dallas Morning News![\"New]()
<\/p>\n
New Dallas Mavericks head coach Dusty May (at table, left) is congratulated on his new position by President of Basketball Operations Masai Ujiri during an introductory press conference at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, June 29, 2026.<\/p>\n
Tom Fox\/The Dallas Morning News![\"Dallas]()
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Dallas Mavericks President of Basketball Operations Masai Ujiri introduced new head coach Dusty May during an introductory press conference at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, June 29, 2026.<\/p>\n
Tom Fox\/The Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n
May is well aware of the history that follows him into his new position. Only one person has successfully coached teams to an\u00a0NCAA title and an NBA championship: Larry Brown. The most recent college coach to make the leap to the NBA was former Michigan coach John\u00a0Beilein, who did not finish the 2019-20 season, his first as coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers.\u00a0A couple of notable outliers include Brad Stevens and Billy Donovan, but the track record for college coaches isn\u2019t promising<\/a>.<\/p>\nMay said he\u2019ll rely on Irving as the team\u2019s lead veteran, along with his college coaching knowledge, to guide him.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe game is closer than ever,\u201d May said. \u201cCollege,\u00a0NBA, the G League, stylistically, they all look very similar if you\u2019re playing modern basketball. And as far as all the other things, you\u2019re never ready. It\u2019s like being a parent. You\u2019re never ready, but you hopefully prepared and done everything in your power to tackle all the challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n
May said he believed he would coach Michigan \u201cfor many years to come,\u201d especially after verbally agreeing to a new contract extension. He was asked if college basketball\u2019s transition to operating more like a professional league\u00a0\u2014 with name, image and likeness deals and the transfer portal\u00a0\u2014 was a primary factor in his jump to the professional level.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe big reason is the people in this facility, first and foremost,\u201d May said. \u201cIt\u2019s much more complicated than it used to be. I love teaching. I love coaching. I love being part of a team. In college basketball, you don\u2019t get to do nearly as much of that as you used to. There are some things that I\u2019m not going to miss about college basketball, but I wouldn\u2019t be there without our players and staff. I had an unbelievable 25, 27 years in college athletics but I\u2019m excited for this opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
May\u2019s first task is to fill out his coaching staff. He expects to have a blended staff with experience spanning the college and\u00a0NBA ranks. He also could retain members from Jason\u00a0Kidd\u2019s staff, but did not disclose who.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Ujiri said May will have his full support when it comes to filling out his staff, and most important, he trusts May to restore something the franchise has missed the last two years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to bring joy back to basketball here,\u201d\u00a0Ujiri said. \u201cIt is a goal, and I know we\u2019re going to do it. And I know the beginning of this joy and goal starts here, with this guy that we welcome here as our basketball coach, Dusty May.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Dallas Mavericks head coach Dusty May responds to questions fro the media during an introductory press conference…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":774044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3793],"tags":[1297,7,686,149,4057,166,6,90942,87095,87093],"class_list":["post-774188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas-mavericks","tag-article","tag-basketball","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-mavericks","tag-dallasmavericks","tag-mavericks","tag-nba","tag-tp-kyrie-irving","tag-tp-american-airlines-center","tag-tp-cooper-flagg"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116837100242646087","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=774188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}