Dusty May is new to the NBA. He's not new to the NBA stage.
Thanks in large part to a Final Four run at Florida Atlantic in 2023 and leading Michigan to the NCAA title last season, May has coached plenty of big games in plenty of NBA arenas and knows what it's like when those buildings are filled to the rafters.
And that means, when he officially starts as coach of the Dallas Mavericks in a few days, May will have a real sense of what's coming — at least from an surroundings standpoint.
“I’ve been in that environment,” May said. “Not at the level, obviously, but I’m someone who's big on visualization. I see myself there. ... But I have a real unique ability to, once the game starts, for 48 minutes to have 100% of my focus on the court and our bench.”
In other words, the coach of last season's NCAA champion truly believes he's ready for the NBA challenge. And he's not alone, with six teams under new coaching management this season.
May is one of three first-time NBA coaches this season, along with Orlando's Sean Sweeney (the former San Antonio assistant) and Portland's Micah Nori (the former Minnesota assistant).
Another trio of coaches got new jobs in the league — former Memphis coach Taylor Jenkins has taken over in Milwaukee, former Orlando coach Jamahl Mosley has taken over in New Orleans, and former interim Portland coach Tiago Splitter (who coached for basically the entirety of last season) is the new coach in Chicago.
“I think just in general, the way we’re approaching things is, ‘What do we need to do today? Where are we at? How did we do with it? What do we need to improve on?’” Sweeney said. “We’ve done a good job of trying to set high standards for ourselves and lay down expectations for each other and live up to that.”
It is possible to win somewhere in Year 1 as a coach — just ask New York's Mike Brown, who led the Knicks to last season's NBA championship in his inaugural season on that team's sideline. The coach of the reigning Western Conference champions, San Antonio's Mitch Johnson, got to the finals in his second season as coach of the Spurs (which, technically, was his first full season as head coach).
Sweeney and Nori were widely considered as being ready to become head coaches for a few years before getting their current chances. May had taken two schools, one of them a mid-major, to the Final Four in a four-season span, more than proving his ability to win. Splitter did such a good job under awkward circumstances in Portland last season that he was a coach of the year candidate, and both Jenkins and Mosley have had success at their previous stops.
Nori essentially accepted a one-year contract with the Trail Blazers, an extremely rare move, especially for a first-time head coach. He's betting on himself, saying that if he does the job the options for future seasons on the existing contract will take care of itself.
“I've been around a lot of — I think it's 13 — head coaches, so you start to see what you would do and what you'd like to do,” Nori said. “I guess the biggest difference, and they always talk about sliding over that one seat, is that it ends with you. ... It's your program now. That's been the biggest adjustment.”
Mosley was living in Florida a few months ago, never thinking he'd be in Louisiana now. But when the Magic decided to change coaches, the Pelicans didn't wait long before pouncing — knowing that Mosley would be a hot commodity. And Mosley says a change of scenery gave him an opportunity for what essentially is a reawakening.
“You get to do a lot of reflecting quick, right? You get to see exactly what worked, what didn’t work, how you can balance out what you do, the roster you have, you get to reflect on a lot of things that were successful and things that you need to work on," Mosley said. "That's what it gave me. And now look at the group of guys that we have here — young, energetic, wanting to learn, wanting to figure it out, hungry to get better. There’s so much of it here that it's easy to pour into an organization like this.”
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