Mavericks Appoint Ujiri As President

The Dallas Mavericks have agreed to appoint Masai Ujiri as their team president and alternate governor, landing a lead basketball executive with proven champion experience after a six-month search process, the team announced.

Ujiri was the architect of the Toronto Raptors’ 2018-19 championship team, the highlight of his 15-year tenure as a lead basketball executive in the NBA. He also won the Executive of the Year award in 2012-13 with the Denver Nuggets.

“The Dallas Mavericks are committed to being a world-class organisation with a strong culture and focused on winning championships. Masai Ujiri is one of the great basketball leaders of this generation and his addition to our franchise is a critical step in meeting our goals,”Mavs governor Patrick Dumont said in a statement.

“We are honored to have him join the Mavs family. We welcome his energy and determination along with his leadership, experience and many accomplishments as a basketball executive. We are very excited about the future of our team.”

The hiring of Ujiri, whose teams in Denver and Toronto had a 690-504 record and made the playoffs in 12 of his 15 seasons in charge, follows a pattern of Dumont pursuing experienced executives with impressive credentials to run his franchise.

“I’m honored to join the Dallas Mavericks and step into this role at such an important time for the organization,” Ujiri said in a statement.

Ujiri has a deep background in scouting, breaking into the NBA as a scout in 2002 after his decade-long overseas playing career ended. His draft picks for the Raptors included All-Stars DeMar DeRozan, Pascal Siakam and Scottie Barnes.

Ujiri established a nonprofit called Giants of Africa in 2003, an organisation expanding across more than a dozen African countries, holding camps and building basketball infrastructure as a way to identify and develop basketball talent, as well as enriching the lives of youth on the continent and encouraging them to chase their dreams.