With a significant offseason approaching, new Mavs executives explained the incoming process of finding the team's next head coach.
The Dallas Mavericks were on-schedule already once this offseason, and they'll look to do so again with its next addition to the staff.
Team governor Patrick Dumont hired president Masai Ujiri within his anticipated timeline of mid-May, before the NBA Draft lottery that landed the Mavs with the No. 9 pick this summer.
The next timeline - for finding the successor to let-go head coach Jason Kidd - likely centers around the June 23 draft date.
In an appearance on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas, new general manager Mike Schmitz - who was Ujiri's first major hire and has taken over the draft scouting process - was loose in his expectation for hiring the team's next on-court leader.
"I don’t think there’s a specific timeline," Schmitz said. "We don’t want to skip any steps… We’re going to do everything to get this right."
That's a similar message to Dumont's upon hiring Ujiri. The co-owner mentioned how he had first met with Ujiri back in December, one month after Nico Harrison was fired.
The news of Ujiri's official hiring didn't come until May after Dumont had explained that he took a fine-tooth comb through the entire process to ensure he got to know Ujiri on a personal and professional level before handing him the keys to the basketball department.
That likely becomes the structure here, as well, because the Mavericks are hoping to find the coach who will transcend star rookie Cooper Flagg from a Rookie of the Year winner into a bona fide All-Star in the years to come.
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With Flagg locked in as the teams' centerpiece, Ujiri's next moves are aimed at building around him.
"Every decision we are going to make here is going to be future-based," Ujiri said in his press conference following the team parting ways with Kidd after five seasons.
"We have a 19-year-old generational player on our roster, and we have to think that way," Ujiri said. "We’re not going to make decisions based on winning today. I don’t think that would make sense for the organization."
Ujiri, who himself is still getting familiar with running an NBA team again after spending this last season out of a front office, said there's a combination of "starting from scratch" and surrounding the current assets with value.
"For me, it was really thinking about the future of this team, the structure, taking a lot of information of some of the things that were beneficial to build a team and being transparent with everybody," Ujiri said. "I think a new slate was a good way to look at this because I feel sometimes in this organization we need a kind of clarity in where we’re going, rather than sometimes lots of things in the mix."
ESPN front office insider and former NBA general manager Bobby Marks outlined some of those key assets the Mavs possess going into next season. Flagg's stardom and cheap rookie contract, Kyrie Irving's and Dereck Lively II returns from injury, and a solid cap situation to go with valuable, experienced role pieces make up a favorable situation.
The No. 9 pick - which is Dallas' last fully-controlled first-rounder until 2031 - is thought of as the most critical of these offseason points.
Which means an expected timeline for hiring the next on-court visionary centers on a window in time before the Mavs select who they hope is Flagg's running mate for the future of the franchise.
Schmitz added: "The foundation of Cooper Flagg is something the the majority of teams just don't have."
