Questions surely will follow Dusty May as he leaps to the Dallas Mavericks after coaching Michigan to the NCAA national championship.
Can he provide blessed amnesia to the Mavericks faithful? Can he help them forget Luka Doncic and Nico Harrison and Anthony Davis and Jason Kidd? Can he allow them to peer into a future anchored by budding superstar Cooper Flagg without constantly checking the rearview mirror?
May, 49, was hired Tuesday as the Mavericks’ head coach, according to multiple outlets. He led Michigan to the pinnacle of March Madness last season and posted a 64-13 record in two years. He also coached Florida Atlantic to the 2023 Final Four and a 60-13 record in the last two of his six seasons there.
The list of high-profile college coaches who struggled to replicate their success in the NBA is daunting: Rick Pitino, John Calipari, John Beilein, Lon Kruger, Tim Floyd and Mike Montgomery immediately leap to mind.
Not only did May not coach or play in the NBA, he barely played in college. He was a 5-foot-10 point guard at NAIA Oakland City for one season before transferring to Indiana and serving as team manager under coach Bobby Knight.
But his arrival will divert attention from the past, from the hugely unpopular and disastrous trade of Doncic to the Lakers for Davis and spare parts on Feb. 1, 2025.
Mavericks fans staged a faux funeral complete with a casket a day later in front of the Dirk Nowitzki statue outside the American Airlines Center. They booed Harrison — the general manager who engineered the deal — at every home game and chanted “Fire Nico.”
When Doncic returned as an opponent, Mavericks fans chanted “MVP” when the Lakers player shot free throws.
Harrison admitted to underestimating the backlash from fans but defended the trade, initially saying he had “no regrets.” By November, he was fired and updated his social media profileto “unemployed.”
Next to go was Kidd, a Hall of Fame point guard who helped the Mavericks to their only NBA title as a player and to the NBA Finals as a coach. At the time, it wasn’t clear whether Kidd was an advocate of the Doncic deal or a victim of a front-office blunder. But Mark Cuban, the Mavericks’ former majority owner who currently owns 27% of the team, indicated March 31 during a podcastthat Kidd was complicit.
“I think there was animosity between [Harrison] and some people on Luka’s team — his agent and some of the people around them,” Cuban said. “I don’t think they got along. I think there were issues.
“J-Kidd had coached Anthony Davis and was close to him, and Nico was close to AD since he was like 13 years old. So I think there was some confirmation bias as well. But that doesn’t justify our coach and our general manager to stand up and trade our best player.”
Doncic, 26, flourished in his first season in Los Angeles despite a late-season injury that kept him out of the playoffs. The shooting guard led the NBA with 33.5 points per game and he will be a franchise cornerstone. Davis played only 20 games with Dallas because of injuries and in February was traded to the Washington Wizards.
The makeover began when the Mavericks secured the first pick in the 2025 NBA Draft despite having only a 1.8% chance of obtaining it through the lottery. They took Flagg, a forward from Duke who went on to lead Dallas with 21 points per game and was named Rookie of the Year.
Next, they hired respected former Raptors executive Masai Ujiri as team president. And now they have added May as coach. This week they will add two more promising players via the first round of the NBA Draft.
The franchise is trying to eliminate reminders while attempting to instill hope for the future.
Meanwhile at Michigan, a loaded roster will report to interim coach Mike Boynton Jr., May’s top assistant and the head coach at Oklahoma State from 2019-2024. Players are allowed to enter the transfer portal for 15 days following a coaching change, so job one for Boynton will be to keep them from fleeing.
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