The Dallas Mavericks are expected to field plenty of options to be their next head coach, but one leading candidate will have no interest in taking the job.
Under their new front office regime of Masai Ujiri and Mike Schmitz, the Dallas Mavericks quickly cleared house, firing head coach Jason Kidd.
Kidd is just two years removed from taking the Mavericks to the NBA Finals, but as the franchise chases a new era led by Cooper Flagg, Ujiri and Schmitz decided it was best to start fresh.
Top prospects to replace Kidd include Nick Nurse, who worked with Ujiri in Toronto, Jon Scheyer, who coached Flagg at Duke, and Micah Nori, a longtime Timberwolves assistant who is expected to get a head-coaching job sooner rather than later.
The leading candidate, however, is San Antonio Spurs associate head coach Sean Sweeney, who served as an assistant on Kidd's Dallas staff from 2021 to 2025. Sweeney is one of the best defensive architects in the league and will certainly be a head coaching candidate this summer, although fans shouldn't get their hopes up that he will return.
Sean Sweeney Will Never Return to Dallas
On paper, all signs should point to the Mavericks hiring Sweeney. After all, he spent four seasons as a top assistant on Kidd's staff in Dallas, and is perhaps the most qualified first-time head coach on the docket.
However, it's worth noting that his divorce from the Mavericks was messy. He was one of the first folks to jump ship after the Mavs traded Luka Doncic away to the Los Angeles Lakers. In the Spurs' season opener against Dallas back in October, Sweeney helped coach the Spurs to a blowout 125-92 win at the American Airlines Center.
During the game, he was wearing the Luka 5, the latest signature shoe from the former Mavericks' superstar. Not exactly a subtle message!
On top of that, Sweeney and Kidd are very close. They started coaching together during Kidd's short stint with the Brooklyn Nets, and then Sweeney followed him to Milwaukee and Dallas, seemingly the first person Kidd called when he got a new job.
Would he want to work for the team that traded away Doncic? Perhaps, although after the new management dismissed Kidd, the animosity probably bubbled back up.
Sweeney is a defensive specialist, so coaching Flagg should be enticing. However, he is currently working with Victor Wembanyama, by far the best defender in the NBA, and other vacant coaching spots like the Orlando Magic and Portland Trail Blazers boast solid defensive cores, giving Sweeney plenty of options.
It's far from a given that things have smoothed over between Sweeney and the Mavs, making his homecoming a bit of a pipe dream.
