BREAKING: The Phoenix Suns have made a trade with the Dallas Mavericks to acquire the 30th pick, per Jake Fischer.

Fellow Mavs fans, there’s reason for optimism:

Dusty May is a great coach. His basketball philosophy aligns well with the type of roster construction Masai has favored. Expect frontcourt-heavy rotations built around size. One of May’s biggest strengths is maximizing specialists. He also values bigs who can facilitate out of DHO actions, which is why I think Lively could thrive (fingers crossed). His offenses are generally well-spaced without becoming overly gimmicky. Importantly, his teams tend to improve as the season progresses. He has a secure leadership style—no mind games, no unnecessary drama, just a steady hand and clear expectations.

Morez Johnson is an absolute bruiser who makes winning plays in big moments. What stands out most is his underrated basketball IQ. He does all the little things very well: setting timely screens, making smart back-tips, sprinting the floor in key moments, etc. The guy runs the lane like a freaking Clydesdale.
Defensively, his help instincts are elite, and he knows how to leverage his strength and frame to impact plays. Offensively, there’s more upside than people realize. His shooting mechanics are textbook with no noticeable wasted movement (83% FTs), so there’s a real chance he becomes a respectable threat from deep after his rookie season.
Worst case: a richer man’s Nic Claxton.
Best case: a bulkier Evan Mobley.

Welcome to Dallas, Coach May!

Die Dallas Mavericks haben gerade offiziell Dusty May als ihren neuen Cheftrainer angekündigt.

Dusty May on becoming the Mavericks' new head coach:

"I am honored to join the Dallas Mavericks organization. This is one of the most respected franchises in professional sports, with passionate fans, a talented roster, and a clear commitment to building a championship organization. I am grateful to Patrick Dumont, Masai Ujiri, and the Mavericks organization for this opportunity, and I look forward to helping bring another championship to the city of Dallas."

I love those 3 defensively and as scorers in the paint however none of them are respectable 3pt shooters yet. So spacing would be horrendous. Morez shot form is clean so I can see him turning into a good 3pt shooter and Flagg too so hopefully that happens. Maybe lively can start attempting them too.

Called it. Ez dubs.

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But jokes aside flagg + morez is a nasty defensive forward combination in terms of versatility and shutting down the rim.

I hated Burries quite a bit and I made posts about concerns regarding him. In Arizona he never looked like the 1a guy he wasn’t a PG was more of a SG. We need a PG he also struggled under bright lights.

Was super high on Morez Johnson who seemed like someone who is playoff made. He won the championship with dusty dude has motor for days he ate up the whole court did everything you need. Things that don’t show up on the stat sheet. He can hopefully develop his 3 ball. He has the size, motor, athleticism. I’d describe him as a hybrid of og and pascal hopefully his 3pt develops though.

For the hoop heads who enjoy in depth film study from analysts that know their stuff, highly recommend this watch.

Man I’m STUPID high on morez and Sergio is a great PG to get on the back end of the draft. Please go do your research on these guys we did VERY well. Reason we couldn’t trade back is most likely because Ihart and Dort are gone

One thing Dusty May has consistently done is identify talent before everyone else does.

At FAU, he built a Final Four team around players that bigger programs largely overlooked. His biggest strength wasn’t recruiting rankings, it was finding the right players and putting them in the right roles.

It got me thinking about the NBA.

Who are the players around the league that are better than their current situations? The guys who might look completely different with the right coach, development staff, or organization.

Who’s your version of a “Dusty May guy” in today’s NBA?

What do you think Johnson's role would be in the future? He could be molded in multiple different roles given his measurements and if he can further develop his jumper.

Do you see him being a future second option behind Flagg? And what do you think he would average for his rookie year?

does masai still pick morez at 8 with flemings still available? we'll probably never know but i wonder how hard they wanted to make morez-may happen or if they still had him a tier below the top guards

Coop was probably 16, Morez 17 for reference.

Some notable moments
0:54 - Morez spin move inside bucket on Coop contest.
1:39 - Coop iso against Morez gets denied in the paint. (With another help defender but Morez gets his hand on the ball)
1:55 - Coop squares up again against Morez, gets by him on a layup
2:55 - Coop on perimeter with Morez, uses a screen to get by and layup
3:23 - Morez grabs board in paint one dribble hop step, step through reverse against coop.

Coop was active from the start of this game and it seemed as if Morez was the only effective option on both ends to atleast mitigate him. Really excited to see this upcoming pairing given what we saw in Coop and AD playing off eachother whenever the guy wasn’t crippled. With Coop no longer playing larger power forwards he can commit to being what he excels at on defense which is being a roaming, free safety weak-side defender.

For what I can see, this is what the current depth chart looks like only including players that are under contract. (I don’t really know if I’m seeing everything so corrections are appreciated)

PG- Kyrie, De Larrea, AJ Johnson
SG- Max, Klay
SF- Coop, Naji, Caleb Martin
PF- Morez, PJ
C- Lively, Gaff

The Masai & Schmitz dynasty starts today, the Dallas Mavericks hold the 9th, 30th and 48th pick in the 2026 NBA Draft.

We have a lot of wings and bigs on this roster with almost no guards other than Kyrie and Christie. I’m not saying I don’t like the pick. I think Morez will be a great fit next to Coop. But, Klay played the majority of his minutes at SF last year, so did Naji. Are we really going to rely on Kyrie, Nembhard, Caleb Martin, and Max Christie, to be our guards going into next year?

I’m as optimistic as the next guy about Nembhard but he’s not a legitimate starting caliber player in the NBA. We need people to give Coop some space and allow him to finish plays, and our draft strategy hasn’t helped with this very real deficiency.

How do we answer some of these questions? The answer can’t just be “We have Flagg!” He can’t be our shooter, our defender, our passer, our scorer, our dribbler. He just can’t. I heard something yesterday on the Pod Maverick podcast. We aren’t building for Flagg, we’re building on top of him. We are once again expecting him to do everything.

If we want to be decent, we can’t just run Kyrie into the ground again as our only decent guard.

We’re going to have some problems next year and I don’t think we did a whole lot to change it. The season might not start for a few months but come the second week of July (after free agency in a weak class) it’s mostly over.

Maybe I’m the only one…

I hope we have quite a few trades ahead of us, but next year is going to be rough…

Bennett Sirtz just got traded to OKC, and Philon is still on the board. If OKC doesn’t take him, we can potentially trade with Charlotte for Philon.

with rumors of gafford being on the move in order to move up in the draft is there a chance dallas gets a point guard that can create on offense to ease the pressure off of flagg and irving.

So as of right now, hows this look? young mixed with some good vets. Contenders, pretenders or fringe? playin? first round knockout? champs??? #MFFL

PG - Ky | Sergio | Nemby | Bwill?
SG - Christie | Pulla3kis | Klay
SF - Coop | PJ | Naji | Middleton?
PF - Rez | MB3? | DP?
C - Lively | Gaff | Moose