00:00Yesterday was the Mavs presser, and I saw Chuck Cooperstein there, so I said we've got to get on the
00:04voice of the Mavericks here on 105.3 The Fan.
00:07Good morning, Chuck. Thanks for the time, as always. Your initial reaction when the news broke that the Mavs had
00:13hired Masai Ujiri?
00:16That Patrick Dumont was true to his word, that he was going to make a big-time hire, and that
00:22he was going to do it by the middle of May.
00:23And given everything that's happened over the last 15 months and the feelings that a lot of the fan base
00:30has had toward Dumont, the fact that he showed that he was true to his word to me was my
00:38biggest takeaway when I first heard the news.
00:41And then, obviously, Masai, while the last three years in Toronto did not go the way he would hope, or
00:48that anyone would hope, I mean, the track record really ultimately does speak for itself, because nobody bats 1,000.
00:54You know, he built two really good teams in Denver and Toronto, and he's, as he was very fond of
01:04saying yesterday, you know, he's got the piece here to begin building something special here.
01:09Chuck, is there a style or traits or an identity you remember from Ujiri in the way that he went
01:17about building those Raptors teams, or that you expect him to apply here to the Mavs?
01:22I mean, he likes, you know, he likes long athletic players.
01:27You know, you look at guys like Siakam and Ananobi, you know, when they were drafting at the bottom of
01:35the round, look at Scotty Barnes, you know, who a lot of people didn't think should be drafted fourth when
01:41he was drafted back in 2022.
01:43You know, thought more he was more an 8 or a 9 kind of draft pick in that lottery, but
01:51he ultimately was right about it.
01:52Now, again, with Barnes, that was a developmental process because he wasn't elite right at the start, but, you know,
02:00we know what he is now.
02:02And so I think his teams are big on length, athleticism, and also development.
02:09If you look at what they did in building their G League team, 9-0-5, Toronto 9-0-5,
02:17you know, they put a lot of players into the league and coaches into the league, too.
02:22I mean, Jerry Stackhouse was the coach there for a long time and did a really good job and actually
02:28wound up being a head coach at Vanderbilt, and obviously he's been an assistant coach in the NBA at several
02:34stops.
02:34Chuck Cooperstein, voice of the Mavericks, on the big new hire over there at the AAC here on 105.3
02:40The Fan.
02:41What were your major takeaways from the presser yesterday?
02:45That the year away has really rejuvenated him and that he's really excited to get to go because I think
02:54he feels, as any general manager would feel, that the hardest part has already been done.
03:02You have found the superstar player, and we clearly have seen through 82 games that Cooper Flagg is a superstar
03:12player,
03:12and he's only going to get better from here, which should be exciting for everybody.
03:19And then having Kyrie back next year, I saw Derek Lively at the news conference.
03:24I don't know if Masai talked to him at some point during the day, but he's out of the boot,
03:31and he's walking around, and he says he's feeling really good.
03:34But they're going to take it slow with him, but knowing the possibility of those two guys being back
03:40and what that can mean, we all know how they struggled because they didn't have those two guys last year.
03:47To have those two guys available could make things a lot more fun around here pretty quickly.
03:52Coop, you know, obviously it was a very exciting rookie campaign from Cooper Flagg,
03:57and I think a lot of people thought even the offense was further along than maybe they had anticipated.
04:02With Masai Ujiri walking in here and seeing where Cooper Flagg's at, what do you think for him is just
04:07like,
04:07line item one, roster needs this, or we need to do this and move this direction?
04:12Obviously he's going to look at the draft and kind of evaluate things there,
04:14but how do you think he really looks at this and needs to attack just the build of the roster
04:19first?
04:20Well, I mean, it doesn't take Einstein.
04:24It doesn't take Masai Ujiri to figure out this team needs more shooting,
04:28and they need better shooting, and better shooting creates better spacing.
04:34And if you give Cooper Flagg and Kyrie more space to operate,
04:39all of a sudden your offense, which was the bottom five in the league for a lot of the year,
04:45all of a sudden that becomes a much more turbocharged-looking offense.
04:50And they also need more point-of-attack defending
04:53because the defense, which started out actually playing pretty well last year,
04:59when it got post-All-Star break, it completely collapsed, and they were awful.
05:05And most of that has to do with the fact that people could just bring the ball off the floor
05:11against the Mavericks with impunity and just get into their stuff
05:14and ultimately get to where they want.
05:17And you can't have that happen.
05:19I mean, you look at the teams that are still playing in the playoffs,
05:22and not to praise the previous administration too much,
05:29but he wasn't wrong when he said that you've got to play defense.
05:34You have got to be able to play defense.
05:36And you look and you see that the top ten teams in three-point attempts in the NBA
05:41in the regular season are not playing in the playoffs.
05:43And you see six of the top eight defensive teams are playing in the playoffs.
05:48You know, you have to score, but you have to be able to defend.
05:52And if you can get some more point-of-attack defending,
05:55and you get Derek Lively back to defend the rim,
06:00which he showed that he's more than capable of doing,
06:03well, all of a sudden your team starts looking a whole lot better.
06:06Chuck, were you surprised they were able to get him?
06:09I wanted him outside of the impossible of Sam Presti.
06:15But did you have your own Chuck Cooperstein wish list amongst –
06:20I'll throw Bob Myers in there, but Connolly and Lindsey in Detroit,
06:26if I stack them all up on a list,
06:28did you have someone stand out as a top choice for you?
06:32I didn't really have a favorite, but I also knew that Bob Myers wasn't going anywhere.
06:40He's just making way too much money and not having to work all that hard,
06:46which I think is everyone's goal, right?
06:48Especially choppy.
06:52Yes, it is, as a matter of fact.
06:57But, no, I didn't really have a favorite.
06:59I really actually think that the guys that worked internally after Nico was fired
07:07did a phenomenal job, did an absolutely phenomenal job.
07:11The Davis trade was a phenomenal trade for them.
07:14And just the work that they've done on the margins,
07:18which you have to be able to do in an apron world,
07:22with the work that they've done with their two ways,
07:24is I think they have found something at Pulikidis.
07:28As the shooting that we talked about earlier, he can really fling it.
07:33And they absolutely need something like that.
07:36But you needed someone that really did have charisma
07:40and someone who could really be front-facing toward the media,
07:47toward the fans, season ticket holders,
07:50I mean, everybody, to sell the vision of the Mavericks.
07:55And Masai Ujiri is expert at that.
07:59So, given the time and the circumstance,
08:02I think it was a tremendous hire.
08:05And, frankly, again, if you can take a step back
08:09and you look at what Patrick Demont did on the business side
08:13when he lured Rick Welts out of retirement,
08:15the guy is a Hall of Famer, he's seen it all and done it all.
08:20And now you get a guy like Ujiri, who is proven,
08:24who has won a championship.
08:25He knows what that looks like.
08:27He knows what NBA players look like.
08:30I think the Mavericks have done a really good job
08:33of repositioning themselves to move forward
08:36from an executive standpoint.
08:38And it's really, really important that they do.
08:41The voice of the Mavericks, Chuck Cooper,
08:43staying with us here on 105 Through the Fan.
08:45Coop, you know, NBA teams have all approached
08:48sort of this top executive role a little differently.
08:51Obviously, like, I mean, the last time for the Mavericks
08:53was a guy in Nico Harrison, who was a Nike executive.
08:55Rob Palenka is a former agent.
08:57Like, you've got all these different styles and things.
08:59Do you think it was important, specifically for where
09:01the Mavericks are at, that they get somebody
09:02with such a strong, like, scouting personnel background
09:05to try and find ways to fill out this roster
09:07with maybe not the resources that you want or need?
09:12That's my prototype of general manager.
09:16You know, I realize that agents and relationships
09:20and things like that, you know, they all matter.
09:23But I do think that if you do come from a scouting background,
09:26that it helps.
09:27That's just me.
09:28I mean, obviously, there are a lot of, as you mentioned,
09:30different ways to skin the cat.
09:31But I like guys who have been in the gym, you know,
09:36who have been around the world, who have been, you know,
09:40trying to uncover the best players under the biggest rocks.
09:46And Messiah has definitely done that.
09:48And so, again, with the Mavericks' lack of flexibility
09:52in the upcoming drafts, not controlling their number one pick
09:56for the next four years after this draft,
09:59I think it's really important to be able to have someone
10:03who knows how to find players.
10:06And I think he showed that in Toronto in building that program back up.
10:11And I think he will do that here.
10:13So, Coop, you know, you mentioned you need to go get players.
10:15They've obviously got that draft pick waiting for them.
10:18Don't know where it's going to be yet.
10:19But you're a college basketball guy, too.
10:21So when you look at things and kind of survey the landscape,
10:24who are you just like, man, if this guy could get to the Mavericks,
10:27wherever it is they pick, if they could get that guy,
10:29they would be in such strong shape with the way their rosters built.
10:33Well, obviously, if they're fortunate enough to move anywhere in the top four,
10:37and any of those four guys will allow them to be significantly better,
10:43just because I think you do win with size and you do win with athleticism.
10:49And that's what the Raptors ultimately were able to win with
10:53when they won the championship in 2019.
10:56I mean, Van Vliet was small as a point guard, but he had big people behind him.
11:01And I think that's absolutely imperative.
11:06You have to have that.
11:08Who are your four guys out of curiosity?
11:10I just want to hear your names.
11:12So the four guys at the top are DeBonson, Peterson, Boozer, and Caleb Wilson.
11:17Those are the four guys.
11:20And then you've got that next grouping of between five and ten with all the point cards.
11:26And so if they stay where they are,
11:30I think it's going to be really interesting to see the medicals on someone like Mikel Brown from Louisville.
11:38I think he's a really interesting player.
11:40I did watch his game in person against SMU back in February, and he was unstoppable, absolutely unstoppable.
11:49But his back has been balky all year long, and that's something that if you're 19 years old,
11:56that would concern me tremendously.
11:58You have a bad back at 19 years old.
12:00Bad backs don't seem to get too much better.
12:02But I'd be curious to see what those medicals look like and then again how they are interpreted.
12:08And to that point, and Nassai mentioned this in the news conference yesterday,
12:13they've got to get the medical thing right because it's not been right for the last couple of years
12:19to the point where the Mavericks have never had a clean injury report since Game 5 of the NBA Finals
12:28in 2024.
12:29What?
12:30So 164 games.
12:33If you looked at the injury report on the day of the game, the Mavericks never had someone who wasn't
12:42considered out for that game.
12:44Wow.
12:45Wow.
12:46So there you go.
12:49Chuck.
12:50They've got to get that cleaned up.
12:52But Brown and Braden Burries of Arizona is a guy that really interests me.
12:57There's a Bradley Beal type of game to him that I think could play really well alongside Kyrie as a
13:07combo guard.
13:08And then as he grows into playing in the league, he probably could take on some point guard responsibilities.
13:16But again, when you also have Flagg, Flagg is going to do that too.
13:20And Jason Kidd has talked a lot about this, just being able to have multiple ball handlers.
13:25And if you watched the game last night between Oklahoma City and the Lakers, you look at Oklahoma City and
13:31everybody can dribble, pass, and shoot.
13:34It sounds so easy and it sounds so primitive, but it really is true.
13:39And there are very few teams that have multiple players who are capable of doing that.
13:44Last one for you, Chuck Cooperstein, voice of the Mavs here on Sean and RJ.
13:47Do you expect Jason Kidd to be the coach next year?
13:50I do.
13:51You know, again, I know Masai's initial comment kind of raised eyebrows everywhere.
13:58Yeah.
13:59But then he was able, I think, to clarify that a little later in the news conference when he said,
14:04look, you know, I went to Denver, George Carl was there, and he was our coach for my first three
14:11years there.
14:11Or my three years there.
14:13And then, you know, he moved on to Toronto.
14:17Then he goes to Toronto, Dwayne Casey's already there, and he kept Case for five years.
14:24And, listen, they had a phenomenal run, including, you know, a trip to the conference finals.
14:31You know, basically, Casey got Toronto to the goal line, and Nick Nurse pushed him over.
14:36And Nick Nurse was tremendous.
14:38But, you know, Casey did a phenomenal job there.
14:41They just kept running into the Cavaliers and LeBron.
14:43It was a really tough nut to crack.
14:46So, it's a tough nut to crack here, too, with what looks like Oklahoma City and San Antonio set up
14:53for extremely long runs.
14:55But it's not to say that the nut can't be cracked by the guy that's in charge presently.
15:00And I think that's going to be the first look at it when everything is cleared up
15:06and the conversations are had between Masai Ujiri and Jason Kidd.
15:10Fantastic stuff, as always.
15:12It's a treat.
15:13Thank you so much, Chuck.
15:14Enjoy the offseason and the playoffs.
15:16Thanks for having me, guys.
15:17Take care.
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