Mavericks' New Additions All Have One Thing in Common, Per New Coach Dusty May

Of all the changes the Dallas Mavericks made this offseason, arguably none were more surprising than the head-coaching change, where Jason Kidd was let go in favor of Michigan's national championship-winning coach, Dusty May.

They also made a handful of roster changes, really improving the back end of the bench to give the Mavs one of the deepest teams in the NBA. That should help them as they try to get out of the doldrums of the Western Conference, which has a wide-open middle tier.

All of the additions have one similarity, according to Dusty May: winning.

May appeared on 105.3 The Fan's radio show this week, where he talked about the ability to win for a lot of the new players.

"When you look at Sass [Marcus Sasser] coming from the Houston program out of college, the Pistons last year, he's coming from a winning organization," May started. "He's used to winning. And the majority of our roster, especially the newly acquired players, you know, you look at Tarik [Biberovic] going to the EuroLeague finals and Morez [Johnson] winning a championship and Sass being a major contributor to the Pistons. Zaccharie [Risacher] with the Atlanta Hawks team that had the Knicks down in the playoffs before the Knicks caught fire and figured some things out."

"So we have a lot of guys that know what winning requires. And so, that's what's encouraging is we're not having to teach all of these guys how to win and what it takes, and they're already well-versed. And all of that is positive."

Have the Mavericks Added Enough Winning to Actually Win?

The Mavericks are coming off their second-worst season since the calendar turned over to 2000, but a lot of it was due to injuries.

Kyrie Irving missed the whole year recovering from a torn ACL, Dereck Lively II only played in seven games before needing foot surgery, and Anthony Davis only played 20 games before being traded to the Washington Wizards because of his lack of availability.

It sounds like Irving is ready to get back to work, but Lively's status remains unknown. Everyone else seems like they're healthy.

Jun 29, 2026; Dallas, TX, USA; New Dallas Mavericks’ head coach Dusty May, along side Masai Ujiri, Dallas Mavericks’ President of Basketball Operations, answers questions from the media during an introductory press conference at American Airlines Center. Mandatory Credit: Raymond Carlin III-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

While the back end of the roster has absolutely improved, they may not have enough top-end talent to make that jump into being a competitor. Having Irving come back and hoping for a second-year jump from Cooper Flagg is great, but they're still probably an All-Star-caliber player away from truly competing.

Luckily, they have a lot of depth and salaries that they could combine to go chase a star if they'd like, even if they don't have a lot of future draft capital.

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