Dusty May is bringing a “next-man up” mindset to Dallas, and he’s not shy about where he picked up the idea.
The new Mavericks coach said recently on 105.3 The Fan that the approach helped carry his Michigan team through injuries and all the way to a national title, and now he wants the same standard built into the Mavs.
Michigan had to navigate some real setbacks along the way. Guard L.J.
Cason went down with a torn ACL during the season, and forward Yaxel Lendeborg sprained his left MCL and left ankle in the Final Four against Arizona on April 4. Still, Michigan came back two days later and beat UConn 69-63 for its first championship since 1989.
May pointed to the team’s day-to-day work as the reason the replacements were ready when the moment arrived.
“That was the coolest part of our team,” May said. “We lose a borderline all-conference guard in L.J. Cason, and then Yaxel, a first-team All-American, potential Player of the Year, goes down early in the Final Four, and at that point you think,'Maybe it’s just not our time, right?”
“And to see the rest of our team step up and have a next-man approach, I just give our guys a lot of credit because the way we practiced and prepared every single day allowed all of those other guys to be ready for the moment,” May continued. “And that’s what we’re preaching now in the summertime with the Mavs.
That’s the message Dallas is trying to build around as it works to gain traction in a city where the Cowboys have long dominated the sports conversation. May said the key is consistency.
“If we compete at the right level every single day with the right intentionality, then our roster will all be better for it. And they’ll all be prepared for when their moment does come.''
There’s still no way to know who exactly that next man will be, and May is stepping into the NBA for the first time. But he arrives with a résumé that demands attention.
At Michigan, he went 64-13 and won two Big Ten titles. The Wolverines also opened the 2026 NCAA Tournament by becoming the first team to score at least 90 points in five straight tournament games. Before that, May took Florida Atlantic to the 2023 Final Four.
The Mavericks hired him on June 23, three months after the title game and hours before the NBA Draft. That night, Dallas used the No. 9 pick on Morez Johnson, who played for May at Michigan.
Dallas, led by Rookie of the Year Cooper Flagg, opens the preseason Oct. 9 against the Houston Rockets in Macao. The regular season starts Oct. 21 at Houston at 7:30 p.m. CT, when the Mavs will begin finding out how quickly that “next-man-up” formula can take hold.
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