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That helps explain why so many Raptors fans were frustrated with Ujiri’s departure from Toronto last June. There were plenty of nits to pick with his post-championship stewardship of the franchise; however, they knew they would never find a lead executive who seemed to care as much as they did. And when you are owned by a corporate monolith, as so many NBA franchises are, that is no small thing. You don’t want it to feel like the executive’s decisions are governed by emotion, but you want to know that the emotion is there. “I have to look to the future because winning is what we have to do here,” Masai Ujiri said Tuesday when asked to evaluate the Luka Doncic trade. “And winning is a responsibility for me.”
During his introductory press conference on Tuesday, Ujiri spoke candidly about taking over following the ill-fated trade that left so many Mavs fans scarred. He went back to his African roots to send a message to a fan base needing hope for the future. “I want to be very respectful to everybody here, and yes, there’s a healing process with that. Luka’s a future Hall of Famer. That’s the past,” Ujiri told reporters. “In Africa, we say when kings go, kings come. And a king went, and we have a little prince here that we’re gonna turn into a king.”
The first in-person meeting was originally a one-hour lunch. It turned into a five-hour conversation that bled into dinner, with the two leaving the restaurant only after the owner, a friend of Dumont’s, let them stay past closing without saying a word. Ujiri offered the story not just as an anecdote but as evidence of the alignment he was looking for, and he made a point of noting that Dumont checked his phone exactly once in five hours. “I have a five-hour meeting with Patrick,” Ujiri said. “Our wives are looking for us. He checks his phone one time in a five-hour meeting. One time. My wife is looking for me. His wife is looking for him. They kicked us out of the restaurant. His friend owns the restaurant. He doesn’t even say anything because his lunch is over. They have to change it to dinner. We go sit outside, and we continue talking.”
Abby Jones: Masai Ujiri on why Cooper Flagg was the ‘selling point’ for the position with the Dallas Mavericks. “You’ve got Victor Wembanyama, Luka Dončić, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Anthony Edwards and Nikola Jokić all for the next 7-15 years. Okay, now you have to convince me that I have to beat all those guys. Okay, you gotta come so with something in your pocket, okay? …and in his pocket he had Cooper Flagg.”
Masai Ujiri on why Cooper Flagg was the ‘selling point’ for the position with the Dallas Mavericks.
— Abby Jones (@_abigaiiiil) May 5, 2026
“You’ve got Victor Wembanyama, Luka Dončić, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Anthony Edwards and Nikola Jokić all for the next 7-15 years.
Okay, now you have to convince me that I have… pic.twitter.com/vbm9KqrhvQ
Abby Jones: Masai Ujiri speaks on the future of Cooper Flagg: “The one difficult thing to find anywhere, anywhere in sports, it's a generational player, and we have one. We've planted a Flagg here. We have one player here that can turn everything and it is so hard to find in sports.”
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Abby Jones: Masai Ujiri said he wants to bring calmness to the position and was asked about the Luka Dončić trade. “We have a saying in Africa, we say, ‘when kings go, kings come’ and a king went [Luka] and we have a little prince [Cooper Flagg] here now. He’s turning into a king and I think we have to start thinking that way.”
Nathan Karseno: #Mavs co-owner Patrick Dumont: "This is a big day for the Dallas Mavericks ... a historic moment for our franchise." Masai Ujiri: "This is incredible. ... The support has been incredible, to come to this storied organization, ... come back to the NBA, it's a blessing."
Tim MacMahon: If Bob Myers would have taken this job and relocated from L.A., then I think that it might be Bob Myers. But this wasn’t a late pivot, necessarily, to Masai. It was very quiet, months-long conversations with him. He first met with Patrick Dumont — I was told it was a four-hour lunch in Las Vegas in December. That’s when the process started with him, and everything was handled as quietly as they possibly could.”
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Considering Ujiri’s hefty Raptors salary (reportedly more than $15 million) was known to be a significant factor in his Toronto departure last June, the widely held belief here is that it cost Mavericks owner Patrick Dumont a pretty penny to bring him to town.
Dumont's talks with Ujiri were largely shielded from the rest of the organization until Monday but make significant sense in the wake of Dallas' abrupt appointment given the longstanding leaguewide belief that Dumont wanted to make the splashiest hire possible and that Ujiri — unlike everyone else in that category who was on the Mavericks' wish list — was not currently attached to another NBA team.