Mavericks Land Michigan’s Dusty May to Lead Cooper Flagg, Young Dallas Roster: Grading the Hire

May is coming off of a college national championship, and now looks to lead Flagg and the young Mavs.

Dusty May led Michigan to the national championship in just his second season with the Wolverines. | David Rodriguez Muñoz / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

After a monthslong pursuit, the Mavericks have reached an agreement with their next head coach. Fresh off of winning a national championship, Michigan men’s basketball coach Dusty May is set to take over one of the league’s most intriguing young teams.

As first reported by the ESPN trio of Pete Thamel, Shams Charania and Adam Schefter, May departs the Wolverines after just two seasons at the helm. May went 64–13 from 2024–25 to ’25–26, taking the program to the Sweet 16 in his first season and winning the national championship this past April.

He had been at the center of Dallas’s search and while he had agreed to a contract extension with Michigan in mid-April after winning the national title, as of late April he had not officially signed. And his fairly muted reaction to winning it all seemed to speak magnitudes about his feelings on college basketball.

Forde: Dusty May’s Ambitious Vision Carried a Michigan Juggernaut to a Championship

Dusty May’s construction of 2025–26 national champion Michigan gave him the look of a pro coach

His title-winning Michigan team was a perfect encapsulation of the modern professionalization of college basketball, and May’s status as its architect put him firmly on the NBA’s radar.

The Wolverines’ top six players (by minutes played) were all newcomers last season. The team’s top four scorers were all first-year transfers in to the program: Yaxel Lendeborg (UAB), Morez Johnson Jr. (Illinois), Elliot Cadeau (North Carolina) and Aday Mara (UCLA). True freshman Trey McKenney rounded out the top five scorers.

Despite the fact that his team was almost entirely pieced together in a single offseason, it had the chemistry and consistency of a group that had played together for years, a testament to May’s coaching. And this week’s NBA draft will be an appropriate culmination of May’s brief but impactful run with the Wolverines; in his latest mock draft for Sports Illustrated, Kevin Sweeney has Mara, Lendeborg and Johnson being selected in the front half of the first round.

May could be in position to take at least one of those players with Dallas, as the Mavs have picks No. 9 and 30 in the first round and No. 48 in the second.

May was far from a one-hit wonder in college

Dusty May turned FAU into a midmajor power at the start of his head-coaching career. | ANDRES LEIVA/PALM BEACH POST / USA TODAY NETWORK

Before taking over Michigan, May led the program at FAU, and college hoops fans should remember it well. May posted a winning record every year with the Owls—far from a traditional power in Conference USA.

In the program’s second NCAA tournament berth, May took the Owls all the way to the Final Four in 2023 as a No. 9 seed, knocking off No. 8 Memphis, fellow Cinderella No. 16 Farleigh Dickinson, No. 4 Tennessee and No. 15 Kansas State before falling to No. 5 San Diego State by a single point, 72–71, in the semifinal.

Sweeney: Six Coaching Candidates for Michigan Men’s Basketball Search After Dusty May’s Departure

Following that remarkable 32–4 campaign, May remained in Boca Raton for another year, and led FAU to a second consecutive tournament appearance.

The Michigan team he inherited the following year was, frankly, a mess, having gone just 8–24 under program legend Juwan Howard in 2023–24. May gutted the roster, replacing six outgoing transfers with players like national title contributor Roddy Gayle Jr., guard Tre Donaldson and center Danny Wolf.

The Wolverines went from 8–24 to 27–10 in one year under May, reaching the Sweet 16 as a No. 5 seed. It would take just one more year for the program to reach the mountaintop.

May is an ideal hire as the Mavericks continue to build around Cooper Flagg

Cooper Flagg, the future of the Mavericks franchise, has his new coach. | Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images

Dallas is desperately looking to move on from the blunder that was the Luka Dončić trade and the larger Nico Harrison regime. Months after trading their franchise cornerstone to the Lakers, the Mavericks lucked into another one, winning the 2025 draft lottery and selecting Cooper Flagg with the No. 1 pick.

While the Mavericks struggled mightily 2025–26, going just 26–56 with Kyrie Irving out for the year and Anthony Davis playing just 20 games before being traded to the Wizards, Flagg’s development was a huge bright spot. He finished the year averaging 21 points per game along with 6.7 rebounds, 4.5 assists and a team-high 1.2 steals, winning Rookie of the Year after a strong finish.

Flagg averaged just 13.4 points per game in five October contests. In April, he appeared in six games and averaged 29.2 points. There were peaks and valleys between the start and end of the season, but he showed serious flashes of the dominant forward he can be. Now, it is on May, who proved to be an impressive developer of talent in college, to help him reach the next level.

While they’re not an exact one-to-one, May thrived with a versatile two-way forward in Lendeborg this season, turning the UAB transfer into one of the best players in all of college basketball. The new Dallas front office, led by Masai Ujiri, targeted May and were reportedly after Flagg’s former Duke coach Jon Scheyer as well, making clear that they valued top college coaches to shepherd the 19-year-old into superstardom. And the chance to coach Flagg had to be the ultimate trump card when it came to May’s decision to leave Michigan, where he faced another rebuild.

Hiring a coach with no NBA experience is always a risk

Fred Hoiberg is one fairly recent example of a top college coach who struggled in the NBA. | Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images

The history of coaches jumping from college to the NBA isn’t a pretty one.

Of the recent examples, former Butler and Celtics coach Brad Stevens has probably had the most success, though Boston only broke through to the NBA title after Stevens left the sidelines for the front office. Former Florida national championship-winner Billy Donovan has had a mixed tenure. Most of the other top names to take the leap have struggled.

Former Michigan coach John Beilein is among the worst examples, going 14–40 in just over half of a season with the Cavaliers before resigning. Fred Hoiberg, Lon Kruger, Rick Pitino and John Calipari are just a few other examples of coaches who haven’t cut it in the pros.

May has zero NBA experience. The former Indiana student manager left his alma mater for a video coordinator job at USC after graduating, returning to IU for a non-coaching role in 2002. He’d bounce around assistant jobs at Eastern Michigan, Murray State, UAB and Louisiana Tech before landing at Florida under Mike White, a position that he used as a springboard to the FAU job.

Of course, college basketball is far closer to the pro game now than ever before, and May will actually deal with significantly less player turnover and financial confusion in the NBA. Even the situation with a peer coach like Hoiberg, who left Iowa State for the Bulls in 2015, is far from an apples-to-apples comparison given the evolution of the sport.

Grading the Mavericks’ Dusty May hire

One thing is clear: The Mavericks needed another big win. Landing Flagg just months after the Dončić deal was a huge coup, and while the upheaval around him didn’t seem to stunt his rookie season development much, it was imperative for Dallas to solidify its coaching and front office situation for year two.

On paper, the Mavs have done just that. Ujiri is an experienced executive with an NBA title under his belt. May was a clear early target and Dallas was willing to play the long game to land him, believing that his college background and mild demeanor would play better with Flagg and the new-look roster than the coach he replaces, the fiery Jason Kidd.

May’s success is not guaranteed, but on paper there is a lot to like about the fit here.

Dusty May to Mavericks hire grade: A-

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