Roundtable: Masai Is The Gm!

Last week, many of our writers had Masai Ujiri takes, which is good. I want lots of article about as many points of view as possible. The challenge is that left less room for the rest of us to write. So here are the remaining reactions to last Monday’s news about the Mavericks hiring Masai Ujiri as President of basketball operations.

Matt: There are times to take a big swing, and times to steady the ship, and this is a move that will satisfy the latter. For much of its Cuban-era existence, Dallas was one of the steadier, more reliable franchises in all of sports. Bringing in an out-of-the-box mind like Nico Harrison seemed like a novel and potentially beneficial move after almost a decade of front office stagnation. Someone with an outsider’s perspective who could lead with a relationship-forward kind of management style. Now, after… everything… a guy like Ujiri – whose basketball bonafides are nearly unassailable, who other GMs won’t laugh at on the phone, and who knows how to hire an NBA-level medical team, – is perhaps what this team needs to find its sea legs after a couple years with more drama than all preceding years of the franchise combined. How he handles this draft and his ability to retain Matt Riccardi and/or Michael Finley, who seemed to do well to reset Dallas’ cap sheet when thrust into co-GM roles, will set the tone for how he’s perceived early on.

Bryan: My reaction was relief. A big sigh of relief that we would have an experienced hand holding the steering wheel and giving this operation some direction early in the Cooper Flagg era. Flagg is the pinnacle of Ujiri’s prized player archetype (hyper-skilled, rangy wings) and a player I can rest assured Masai is eager to build around. His track record is lengthy, painted with hits and peppered with misses as it would be for any league executive as tenured as he is. He has built a team starting further back in the race than the Mavericks currently are that’s been to the summit and seen it all. His track record drafting late in the first round and finding second-round/undrafted impact players has been fairly good, and those are talents that should serve him well in Dallas. The end of his Toronto era was messy and shrouded in the midst of owner meddling and the assertion of his successor, but Masai’s resume in both Denver and Toronto, right up to and including the much-maligned at the time decision to draft Scottie Barnes 4th overall, speaks for itself and says we should have a bit of faith if nothing else. Many fans like myself have been searching far and wide for a simple win rather than another reason to critique the team

Tyler: The hiring doesn’t move me in a basketball sense, as I believe that Ujiri is past his prime as a basketball mind. However, the fact that the Mavericks were able to draw a name that, for what it’s worth, wasn’t leaving his previous gig for just any job, says a lot about what basketball people think about the opportunity. We’ll find out early on whether Ujiri truly still has it, or if it wasn’t just Toronto’s circumstances that caused his ultimate demise there. Either way, what an interesting hire!

Grace: I am pretty excited to bring in Ujiri. It feels like we finally have an adult in the room and it’s nice! When the news first broke, I was skeptical as Masai’s tenure in Toronto quickly went south after their championship run, leading to them being at the bottom of the league, landing at the top of the lottery in recent years before Masai’s departure. With all this being said, I was really impressed with what I heard at his introductory press conference. He recognized that they have a prized possession in Flagg to build a championship team around, along with Mavericks need to improve their training staff. I am going to approach his time here with caution because I refuse to let myself be disappointed but am excited and hopeful to see what he can do here.

Chandler: Like a lot of Mavs fans, I’m pretty firmly in “wait-and-see” territory with Ujiri. I just don’t think we know enough about his vision for the team to say one way or another; in what capacity he keeps FinCardi around will be a big litmus test for me. One angle I do think is worth mentioning though: this hire could have gone so much worse. If some of the more recent reporting is to be believed, we could have found ourselves in the Jason Kidd coup d’état timeline, and I don’t think anyone would have enjoyed that. At the end of the day, we landed someone with actual basketball team-building experience—when all is said and done, that may not be enough to truly capitalize on the Flagg era, but I do think it’s enough to avoid hitting the panic button right this second.

Kirk: I don’t think anyone would’ve made me happy. But I like other people being excited about it, so for now I am choosing cautious optimism.