Даллас Маверикс багийн түүхэнд 11 дэх удаагийн ерөнхий дасгалжуулагчаар Дасти Мэйг томилсныг даваа гарагт албан ёсоор зарлалаа.
Дасти Мэй нь Мичиган багийг удирдан 37-3 гэсэн амжилттайгаар үндэсний аварга болгосон туршлагатай бөгөөд Даллас Маверикс багийн удирдлагуудтай хийсэн уулзалтын дараа энэхүү ажлын саналыг хүлээн авчээ. Тэрээр багийн бүрэлдэхүүний олон талт байдлыг хангах, ямар ч нөхцөлд ялалт байгуулахад бэлэн байх, үзэгчдэд сонирхолтой тоглолт үзүүлэх зорилготой байгаагаа илэрхийлсэн юм. Мөн тэрээр багийн залуу тоглогч Купэр Флагг болон гэмтлээс эргэн ирж буй Кайри Ирвинг нартай хамтран ажиллахдаа тоглогчдын итгэлийг олж, тэднийг дэмжихэд анхаарна гэв.
Багийн ерөнхий менежер Майк Шмитц шинэ дасгалжуулагчийг сагсан бөмбөгийн бүхий л түвшнийг нарийн судалдаг, хүнтэй харилцах өндөр ур чадвартай хэмээн онцолсон байна. Дасти Мэй өмнө нь Мичиган багт хамт байсан Морез Жонсонтой Даллас Маверикс багт дахин нэгдэж байгаа юм. Оюутны спортын ертөнцөөс мэргэжлийн түвшинд шилжиж буй дасгалжуулагчийн хувьд энэ нь өмнөх туршлагаа ашиглан NBA-д амжилт гаргах томоохон сорилт болох ажээ.
Дэлгэрэнгүй эх сурвалжийг харах
Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
DALLAS — Dusty May spent a few days in Southern California last month for the Big Ten’s spring meetings. A film obsessive, May brought a special hard drive loaded with his favorite actions that international teams run.
May, a Terre Haute, Ind., native, has long sought inspiration from across the globe. His adaptability over eight seasons as a college coach was one of his defining traits.
In 2023, May led a plucky Florida Atlantic team to the Final Four by playing four-guard lineups. Three years later, while at Michigan, May’s team dominated college basketball with a massive frontcourt featuring Yaxel Lendeborg (6-foot-9), Morez Johnson Jr. (6-foot-9) and Aday Mara (7-foot-3).
The success May had playing a variety of styles helped convince the Dallas Mavericks that he was the right person for their coaching vacancy. On Monday, the team introduced May as the 11th head coach in franchise history (including two separate stints under Dick Motta). The 49-year-old who got his start as a student manager for Bob Knight at Indiana said he hopes to accomplish two things in Dallas.
“One, to be enjoyable to watch for our fans,” May said. “And two is to be equipped to win any type of game: a regular-season shootout, a knockdown slugfest or a playoff slugfest. With that, you need lineup versatility. You need a deep roster. And you need guys who really care about playing off each other.”
Dusty May leaving for pros is familiar for Michigan fans
Austin Meek
In April, May’s Michigan team knocked off Connecticut in the national championship to cap a 37-3 season. The Mavericks’ job wasn’t on his radar until he attended the NBA Draft Combine in Chicago the following month, he said.
Members of Dallas’ brain trust who traveled to the Windy City picked May’s brain about prospects they were considering in the draft. Then, May was asked if he might be interested in making the leap to the NBA.
“My eyes went up, and I said, ‘This one checks all the boxes,’” May said.
Those boxes included a young, coachable franchise player in Cooper Flagg; no state taxes in Texas; an airport from which his wife, Anna, could catch direct flights to visit their three adult sons; and “alignment” with Mavericks’ governor Patrick Dumont, team president Masai Ujiri and general manager Mike Schmitz.
Out of those three, May has known Schmitz the longest. Their relationship dates back more than a decade to when May and Schmitz, then a journalist covering the draft, began bumping into each other on European scouting trips. They’d spend all day in gyms in faraway places like Estonia or Slovakia and then go to dinner at night.
“He’s a basketball junkie,” Schmitz said. “He studies the game relentlessly at all levels. He’s watching college. He’s watching NBA. He’s watching EuroLeague. He’s watching EuroCup. Every level of basketball, he’s consuming. When you combine that with his basketball intellect, who he is as a person, how he builds relationships … it gives you incredible confidence that he’ll translate really well to the NBA.”
The track record of college coaches who went directly to head coaching in the NBA is mixed. Rick Pitino and John Calipari struggled with the adjustment in their respective tenures with the Boston Celtics and New Jersey Nets in the 1990s. (Pitino jumped from the college ranks to the NBA twice, leading the New York Knicks to playoff appearances in 1988 and 1989 before resigning to become the head coach at Kentucky.) John Beilein, who left Michigan for the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2019, lasted less than one season before resigning. But Brad Stevens — the Butler-turned-Boston Celtics coach — and Billy Donovan, who left Florida for the Oklahoma City Thunder and, later, the Chicago Bulls, are recent examples of coaches who have made it work.
“(There’s) a merger of the game,” May said. “Of college becoming more professional and professional becoming younger.”
Lendeborg, Michigan’s star forward, reportedly earned roughly $5 million last season. He’s also 23 years old, four years older than Flagg.
“I feel like the last five years of the NIL era was a segue into the NBA,” May said. “We weren’t coaching professional players who were under contract, per se, but they were getting paid. The same problems — not at the same scale, but similar problems. Similar issues. Similar challenges. The game is closer than ever.”
May wasn’t going to leave Michigan for another college program this summer. He was only going to depart Ann Arbor if the right NBA opportunity arose. It did in Dallas. He’ll even be coaching one of his former Michigan players in Johnson, who the Mavericks picked ninth in last week’s draft.
“I knew he always wanted to be in the NBA,” said Joe Pasternack, the head men’s basketball coach at UC Santa Barbara, who was a student manager at Indiana alongside May. “He’s going to do an amazing job. He’s intelligent. He’s a grinder. He has incredible humility.
“Dealing with today’s NBA players, it’s not as much about you as a coach as it is in college. I think he’s the perfect personality to deal with players today. I think it all goes back to learning as a Bobby Knight manager. It’s not about you. You know your place. You know your role. It’s about serving the players.”
May said he has already spoken with every player on the Mavericks’ roster, including Kyrie Irving, who will return this fall after missing all of last season with a torn ACL. May called Irving “one of the greatest point guards to ever play the game” and likened him to a “jazz musician.”
“How to earn his trust?” May said. “Be yourself and work like crazy for him every single day. Kyrie knows what it takes to win a championship. As a first-time NBA coach, I’m going to lean on him in a lot of areas.”
Pasternack has known May for three decades. They got to spend time together last month when May was in California.
May lent Pasternack his hard drive of choice actions run by international teams. Pasternack has yet to return it.
“I owe it back to him,” Pasternack said. “He’s just so curious and consumed with the constant learning of the game of basketball. People ultimately respect him because of his work ethic. And his personality to get people to be able to like him is really great. He can play any way. His studying of the game will allow him to do that.”
