Lakeside suburbs measure sports winters by how early hope starts sounding like a plan.
For Mavericks followers along the Lewisville Lake corridor, the plan now has a nameplate: Masai Ujiri. ESPN's Tim MacMahon and Zach Kram, in an offseason recap, reported that governor Patrick Dumont hired Ujiri to run basketball operations after a season-long search, and that Ujiri parted with Jason Kidd before recruiting Dusty May from Michigan's NCAA championship program.
NBA.com's Shaun Powell dated the stakes to last season's 26-56 mark and a 12th-place Western finish. The teardown, in other words, is not theoretical. The regular season that tests the rebuild tips Oct. 21 at Houston at 7:30 p.m. CT, per the Mavericks' schedule release.
What Ujiri has already signaled
Kram wrote that Ujiri's early acquisitions - Morez Johnson Jr., Sergio de Larrea, Zaccharie Risacher among them - were chosen to simplify life for Cooper Flagg rather than to chase a finished contender overnight. Powell's league preview called Flagg the obvious centerpiece and asked aloud whether Kyrie Irving remains after the trade deadline even if he plays well.
That dual track - develop the teenager, evaluate the veterans who reached a Finals a few years earlier - is the front-office story Little Elm fans will hear all winter. P.J. Washington and Dereck Lively II, Powell noted, are part of the keep-or-move inventory.
May's college title is a credential, not a system yet
USA Today reported May as a first-time NBA head coach arriving with four drafted rookies and returning injured pieces in Irving and Lively. Powell added that Johnson, May's former Michigan forward, was drafted on the coach's recommendation. College chemistry does not automatically survive NBA spacing and physicality, but it does explain why the staff may trust certain young bigs sooner than outside observers expect.
The schedule will not wait for the org chart to settle
Houston on Oct. 21, Indiana on Oct. 23, San Antonio at AAC on Oct. 24: DFWsportsonline's account of the release spelled out the gauntlet. Dallas also opens NBA Cup group play against Houston at home on Oct. 30. Three of the first four games and 10 of the final 15 are on the road, the release said.
Front-office resets are judged in June. They are previewed in October, when half-court efficiency - dead last in Synergy tracking last season, per NBA.com's John Schuhmann - either improves with Irving's creation or announces another long winter. ## What suburban fandom should watch first
