What Does Masai Ujiri’s History Tell Us About Mavericks’ Next Coach?

The Dallas Mavericks are looking for a new head coach for the first time under this ownership group. Patrick Dumont landed a new team president to make the key decisions, and that had Ujiri moving on from Jason Kidd earlier in the week in favor of a new voice. Who that voice will be is completely unknown, though.

A lot of names have already been thrown around and rumored, such as San Antonio assistant head coach Sean Sweeney, but what hires has Masai Ujiri made in the past? Could that be an insight into how he will handle this hire?

Ujiri has said that they will explore every angle and that it's a completely open and comprehensive search. Let's look at the two hires he's made previously and see if we can use that to predict the next coach of the Mavs.

Incumbent Coaches Masai Ujiri Kept

This will be Masai Ujiri's third time taking over as the lead executive of a franchise. He first did it with the Denver Nuggets in 2010, keeping George Karl in place as the head coach. He even signed Karl to a contract extension, but Karl is a legendary coach. He's 7th in all-time wins, so that's a much different scenario than if he had kept Kidd.

Ujiri was also only with Denver for three years before going to the Toronto Raptors, where he had been an assistant general manager previously. Once he got to Toronto, he kept Dwane Casey in place for years, but he made the difficult decision to move on from Casey after he won Coach of the Year. And that's where we can start looking at his hiring history.

Nick Nurse

The first coach Masai Ujiri hired was Nick Nurse in 2018, who had been an assistant coach with the Raptors since 2013. He also had some G-League head coaching experience, winning two championships. That move immediately paid dividends, as the Raptors won the championship in Nurse's first season as the head coach.

However, Nurse would be fired in 2023 after the Raptors failed to make the playoffs. He went to the Philadelphia 76ers after that, and his future is up in the air after they fired Daryl Morey.

Darko Rajokovic

After Nurse, Masai Ujiri hired Darko Rajakovic, who had been an assistant in the NBA with the OKC Thunder, Phoenix Suns, and Memphis Grizzlies previously. He had also been a head coach in the G-League. He helped the Raptors get to the 5th seed in the playoffs this year, pushing the Cleveland Cavaliers to 7 games.

So, with two hires on his resume, there are some similarities between the two. Both were assistant coaches who spent time as head coaches in the NBA's G-League/D-League. Are there any candidates out there who fit those?

Not necessarily. Howevere, there are three well-respected assistants floating out there that could make sense.

The first is Sean Sweeney, who spent a few years under Jason Kidd as an assistant coach in Dallas, so there is already a level of familiarity. The second is Micah Nori of the Minnesota Timberwolves, who has been in the running for a lot of jobs in the last few years. The third is Johnnie Bryant, an assistant for the Cleveland Cavaliers, who was a finalist for the Phoenix Suns job last year.

Based on Ujiri's history, it wouldn't be surprising if any of those three were the choices.

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