Mavericks Hire Masai Ujiri as Team President After Six-Month Search to Replace Nico Harrison
The Mavericks finally have their guy. After a six-month search following Nico Harrison’s November firing, Patrick Dumont landed the biggest fish in the executive pond. Masai Ujiri is the new Dallas Mavericks president of basketball operations and alternate governor.
This is a swing for the fences. Ujiri ran the Toronto Raptors from 2013 to 2025 and is most famous for building the team that won the 2019 NBA Finals. He drafted Pascal Siakam in the back of the first round, signed Kyle Lowry to a contract that aged perfectly, and pulled off the Kawhi Leonard trade that nobody else would attempt. The man knows how to take a swing.
Dallas needed that. The roster Harrison left behind has Luka Doncic, who has been the subject of every trade rumor in basketball for the past year, and a supporting cast that is talented but expensive and aging. The Klay Thompson signing did not produce what it promised. The bench depth is shaky. The front office needed both creativity and stones.
Ujiri has both. Per Shams Charania, Ujiri is being given full authority over basketball operations. That means trades, drafts, contracts, and the entire scouting infrastructure. Dumont is letting him build the way he wants to build, which is the right call.
The first move is already done. Mike Schmitz, formerly of the Portland Trail Blazers, has been hired as general manager underneath Ujiri. Schmitz is a respected draft evaluator who covered the league publicly for years at ESPN before moving to a front office. He is young, modern, and well-liked across the league.
Here is what to watch for. Ujiri’s track record in Toronto includes a willingness to be patient and a willingness to be aggressive in the same offseason. He once traded DeMar DeRozan, a homegrown All-Star, for a player coming off a championship and a quad injury. The Mavericks have a Luka Doncic situation that could go in multiple directions, and Ujiri is the kind of executive who is not afraid to make the call.
The Tim Connelly chase is over. Dallas spent months trying to pry Connelly away from the Timberwolves, and Alex Rodriguez made it clear publicly that he was not interested in losing his president. Connelly is now in line for an extension in Minnesota, and the Mavericks moved on cleanly.
Ujiri’s introductory press conference was, by all accounts, more philosophical than specific. He talked about focus and purpose and direction. He did not name names or commit to plans. That is how a smart executive runs his first day. The work happens behind the scenes.
For Luka Doncic, the message should be hope. Ujiri is exactly the kind of front office boss who can talk to a superstar about long-term construction without it sounding like a sales pitch. If Doncic wants to win in Dallas, he now has a partner who has won before in a similar market with a different problem to solve.
For the rest of the NBA, the message is simple. The Mavericks are back to being aggressive. Patrick Dumont was always going to spend. Now he has someone who knows how to spend wisely. That is a problem for everyone else in the West.
Toronto fans, meanwhile, are watching their old architect get the keys in Dallas. The Raptors moved on a year ago. The Mavericks just made sure his next chapter is going to be loud.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
