The Dallas Mavericks organization has been busy since their season ended in April. They finally filled their front office vacancies, adding Masai Ujiri as president and Mike Schmitz as general manager. On Tuesday, Ujiri announced that head coach Jason Kidd and the Mavericks “mutually agreed” to part ways. Now, Dallas is in the hunt for a head coach to lead this team into a new era with Rookie of the Year Cooper Flagg as the guiding light.
But what exactly are the Mavericks looking for with their next coaching hire? Ujiri didn’t give a ton of concrete details on what tangible assets their next coach should have when he addressed the media on Wednesday. The former Raptors executive said all the boilerplate stuff of wanting to hire a “winning” coach, someone to lead the team as they build around Flagg for the future.
He was also careful not to disparage Kidd on his way out the door, as he praised him on multiple occasions and made it clear that anything he says about what they want in the next coach isn’t a reflection on Kidd’s coaching chops.
Will they hire a first-time head coach? Or maybe someone with some championship experience? Ujiri said anything is on the table.
“It’s an open search… I think our minds are very open,” Ujiri said. “We’re going to look everywhere, no stone unturned, and we will really look at what’s best for this organization. Be it first time, be it experience, be it college, be it European, you know, everywhere. Whatever is best for this organization going forward is what we are going to look at, and it’s going to be very comprehensive.”
Ujiri confirmed that he didn’t speak to any candidates prior to Kidd’s departure, as that would be “disrespectful.” He also doesn’t have a list of candidates, or at least not one he’s willing to publicly share. But it’s obvious that this search will be extensive.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at some possible candidates that the Mavericks could look at as they start their coaching search.
Sean Sweeney, San Antonio Spurs
Sweeney and the Mavericks have some history. He served as an assistant under Kidd from 2021 to 2025, departing after the season in which the Mavericks made the catastrophically dumb decision to trade Luka Doncic. Sweeney left for a promotion with the San Antonio Spurs, where he’s now the associate head coach under Mitch Johnson, and is now three wins away from reaching the NBA Finals. With Kidd gone, the Mavericks are interested in bringing Sweeney back to fill their head coach vacancy, per Marc Stein.
Sweeney is well-regarded around the league, and after San Antonio’s Game 1 win against the Thunder, Victor Wembanyama even praised him for putting together the team’s defensive game plan against OKC. When asked how much credit he gives Sweeney for the Spurs defense, which forced 14 turnovers and contributed to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander having an uncharacteristic poor shooting night, Wembanyama said, “All of it.”
Sweeney has had success coaching against the Thunder: he was on the Mavericks staff that beat this OKC team in the 2024 playoffs en route to an NBA Finals appearance, as well as the year Dallas went to the Western Conference Finals in 2022. He’s a defensive-minded coach who would do wonders with someone like Flagg, who already showed he has All-Defensive tendencies in his rookie year.
But the Mavericks aren’t the only team with a coaching vacancy. The Bulls are reportedly interested in Sweeney, and as the only team with two lottery picks in next month’s draft, Chicago is an enticing position. However, the Mavericks have one thing the Bulls don’t: Cooper Flagg. This all hinges on Sweeney’s interest in being a head coach right now. He’s got a pretty great situation going on in San Antonio at the moment, so it wouldn’t be surprising if he wanted to stay with the Spurs and Wembanyama and see just how great this team can become.
Micah Nori, Minnesota Timberwolves
Nori has been a head coach in waiting for some years now. Regarded as one of the top assistant coaches in the league, he’s spent the last five seasons under Chris Finch in Minnesota. Despite Nori and Ujiri both spending time with the Raptors and Nuggets, though, the two never crossed paths at the same time. Maybe that changes in Dallas.
Nori brings almost two decades of assistant coaching experience and filled in as head coach when Finch was sidelined during the 2024 playoffs after surgery to repair a ruptured right patellar tendon. He’s been called a “genius” by Wolves star Anthony Edwards, and Nikola Jokic said he’s “prepared for anything.” He was a candidate in previous coaching cycles for the Lakers and Knicks, and is considered a hot commodity once again with several openings across the league in addition to Dallas.
Nori is essentially the defensive coordinator on Finch’s staff, and with him on the bench, the Timberwolves have ranked in the top 10 defensively in each of the last four seasons. Like Sweeney, he’s also a potential candidate in the early going of Dallas’ search, per Marc Stein.
Jared Dudley, Denver Nuggets
Dudley was an assistant under Kidd for four years before joining the Nuggets staff this season. After putting together a 14-year NBA career that featured a championship in 2020 with the Lakers, he’s become a rising assistant coach in the league. It’s not surprising, as Dudley was always one of the best quotes during his playing career thanks to his deep knowledge of the game, and that’s quickly translated to the coaching side of things.
Dudley’s experience lies on the player development side, which should be an area of importance for a Mavericks roster that may look entirely different when next season starts. If Dallas enters somewhat of a rebuild to try and regain some of the draft assets Nico Harrison shipped off, that could mean veteran players like Klay Thompson, PJ Washington, Daniel Gafford, Naji Marshall and maybe even Kyrie Irving are on the move. Ujiri did mention that there’s a “huge curiosity” to see Irving and Flagg play together, so maybe take him off the list, but if the rest of those players are gone, that means Dallas will be relying heavily on younger players.
That’s where Dudley can come in and grow with the players without heightened expectations to win with this roster right now. He already has familiarity with some of the players on the roster, and Ujiri said some assistants who worked under Kidd will remain for next season, so Dudley could walk into a situation with some familiar faces.
