The Dallas Mavericks, who parted ways with Jason Kidd on May 19, have widened a head-coach search that could reach outside the NBA, with league sources saying the club might consider South Carolina coach Dawn Staley.
An NBA executive told a reporter it "wouldn't be shocking" if the Mavericks wanted to interview Staley, whose record at South Carolina — 511 wins and 113 losses since she took the job in 2008 — and three national championships have made her one of college basketball's most dominant coaches.
Staley has never coached professionally. She interviewed for the New York Knicks' head coaching job in 2023 and later said on a podcast that "no NBA team is ready for a female coach right now." If Dallas were to hire her, she would become the first female head coach in NBA history.
Masai Ujiri, who took charge as the Mavericks' team president earlier this month, has urged a thorough process. Ujiri told reporters Wednesday the franchise would leave "no stone unturned" and that, echoing his approach elsewhere, "We will really, really look at what’s best for this organization."
The search is broad. The Mavericks could also interview Sean Sweeney, Jon Scheyer, Micah Nori and Thiago Splitter. Sweeney spent several seasons on Jason Kidd's staff in Dallas before leaving for San Antonio before this season. Scheyer coached Cooper Flagg during Flagg's lone year at Duke. Nori has interviewed for several other NBA head coaching positions in recent years. Splitter won a championship with the San Antonio Spurs as a player and later led the Portland Trail Blazers to the playoffs after taking over early in the season following Chauncey Billups' arrest.
The appeal of a figure like Staley is obvious: 511 wins, three national championships and two decades of building a program mean she brings a clear track record of results. That weight is what has teams, and a league executive, openly entertaining the scenario where a college coach becomes an NBA head coach — and another franchise could set a historic precedent.
Context sharpens the choice. The Mavericks are coming off back-to-back losing seasons, including a 26-56 record in 2025-26, and the club has signaled a willingness to expand its search beyond traditional NBA assistants. Ujiri's reputation for a comprehensive approach — he previously pursued other nontraditional candidates elsewhere — informs why names from college and international ranks are surfacing now.
The tension is direct: Staley's dominance at South Carolina and national profile sit against two hard facts. She has never coached professionally, and she herself has expressed skepticism about the league's readiness, saying "no NBA team is ready for a female coach right now." That remark highlights a gap between a franchise asserting it will consider every option and the personal and cultural hurdles any historic hire would face.
The central question now is whether the Mavericks' leadership will translate stated openness into a concrete interview or offer that tests both the franchise's stated policy and Staley's own reservations. For Dallas, the next step is practical — who they call in, what interview process they follow, and whether a team president promising to leave "no stone unturned" will make a move that alters the coaching landscape.
