Masai Ujiri says Mavs ‘needed a clean slate moving forward,’ ‘extremely curious’ about Kyrie Irving and Cooper Flagg
The Dallas Mavericks became the latest NBA team to leave a head coach this season on Tuesday when they announced they had agreed to part ways with Jason Kidd.
While meeting with reporters the next day, the new Mavericks president and fellow governor Masai Ujiri respectfully indicated that the personnel change was different.
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“I think it’s fair to say the decision is on me,” Ujiri said of Kidd’s dismissal at Wednesday’s press conference. “I don’t want to put that on any player in any way, and neither does anyone else in this organization.”
Jiri, who helped build the NBA’s first NBA roster for the Toronto Raptors, explained that he and new Mavericks general manager Mike Schmitz have been taking a close look at the organization, from top to bottom. Ujiri, 55, described firing Kidd as a “very difficult decision” but one that he took responsibility for.
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Kidd’s firing comes after his fifth season as Dallas’ head coach. A Basketball Hall of Famer, Kidd began his illustrious 19-season career with the Mavericks, who took him with the No. 2 overall pick out of California in the 1994 draft. He won NBA Rookie of the Year with the Mavs and earned the first of his 10 All-Star appearances the following season. Eventually, he found his way back to Dallas, where he won an NBA title with the Mavericks in the 2010-11 season.
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Kidd served as the head coach of the Brooklyn Nets (2013-14), Milwaukee Bucks (2014-18) and Mavericks (2021-26). At times, he has achieved significant success, such as when he led Dallas to the NBA Finals during the 2023-24 campaign.
But Jiri made it clear on Wednesday that he is looking to turn the page. He was careful not to accuse Kidd of anything or shoot him for that matter.
“A lot of the conversations I had with Jason I think will stay between us,” Ujiri said. “For me, I was really thinking about the future of this team, the structure, maybe taking a lot of information on some of the things that I think are useful in building a team.
“Obviously for everybody, I think the new slide was a good way to look at this because sometimes I feel like in this organization we needed to be clear about where we’re going rather than sometimes there’s a lot of mixed things. We need to work in one direction. [in] how we build this team and how we win.”
Ujiri later reiterated: “We just needed a clean slate to move forward.”
The reporter asked if Kidd was tied to the government that traded for Luka Dončić and contributed to the desire for that new beginning. Jiri, who has been adamant that the Mavericks need to move on from that bad Dončić deal, said that it did not play a role in his decision to leave Kidd. Ujiri was also asked if Kidd’s reported interest in the role Ujiri has found influenced his decision. He said that, again, it was nothing.
While he did not provide a specific timeline for finding Kidd’s replacement, Ujiri said Dallas’ search for a coach will be thorough.
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Ujiri said he spoke with Cooper Flagg and Kyrie Irving, the cornerstones, about his decision to part ways with Kidd. Those two players, in particular, are at the core of what Ujiri wants to shape the Mavericks around. Flagg, this season’s NBA Rookie of the Year, is only 19 years old, while Irving – a nine-time All-Star – is 34 and coming off ACL surgery.
Both, however, are extremely talented Duke products.
“Kevin Durant once told me that there is only one Kyrie in the world,” said Ujiri. “I think we have to figure out how Kyrie fits into our system, and I had those conversations with Kyrie until yesterday. And I think Kyrie will fit.
“There’s a lot of curiosity in our minds to see how Kyrie fits in playing with Cooper Flag. He’s that kind of incredible talent and player. And I think we owe this organization that.”
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However, it cannot be denied that the future of the Mavericks begins and ends with Flag. Ujiri praised Kidd for making the bold decision to put the ball in the forward’s hands early on. While some growing pains were inevitable, Flagg began to come into his own as the season progressed.
He averaged 21 points, 6.7 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 1.2 steals per game. Flagg led the Mavs in scoring, albeit in a 26-win campaign.
“Every decision we’re going to make here is going to be based on the future,” Ujiri said. “We have a player of the 19-year-old generation in our lineup, and we have to think like that, so we won’t make decisions about winning today, I don’t think that will make sense for the organization.
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“And honestly, when we’re looking at it, what’s our future going to look like? What’s winning going to look like? How’s this organization going to be built? What’s the structure? What’s the vision? How do we all fit together and move in the right direction? And it’s every department in this organization, from medical to coaching to testing to development to everything you can think of in the last two weeks, there in the last two weeks. [we] they really continued to explore this.”
