Mike Schmitz starts Monday as general manager of the Dallas Mavericks, reporting to Masai Ujiri and inheriting a roster with $185 million in committed salary through 2026. The hire, announced late Thursday, puts the league's most-respected draft analyst in charge of scouting, player personnel, and strategic planning for a team that went to the Finals eight months ago and hasn't made a playoff trade in three years.
Schmitz spent nine seasons at ESPN producing film breakdowns that became required viewing for front offices. He joined the New Orleans Pelicans in 2022 as VP of player personnel, where he led the evaluation that brought Dyson Daniels at pick eight and Jordan Hawkins at fourteen last summer. Both are rotation players on contracts worth $23 million combined over four years. New Orleans went 49-33 this season. Schmitz interviewed for the Pelicans' GM opening in March, lost to Bryson Graham, and started fielding calls from three teams by April.
The move clarifies Ujiri's structure in Dallas. He arrived in January with a five-year deal worth roughly $12 million annually and no clear deputy. Schmitz now owns draft preparation, international scouting, and trade construction. He does not control coaching decisions—Jason Kidd reports directly to Ujiri—but will sit in on all basketball operations meetings and manage the front office's daily workflow. The Mavericks have six assistant GM-level executives who previously reported to no one in particular. They now report to Schmitz.
Dallas has $47 million in cap space projected for summer 2026 when Kyrie Irving's contract expires. Schmitz's first major task is the June draft, where the Mavericks hold pick 28 and no second-rounder after trading it to Golden State in the Tim Hardaway Jr. salary dump last August. The team has not drafted a rotation player since Josh Green in 2020. Schmitz built his reputation finding second-round value—he lobbied New Orleans to take Jose Alvarado undrafted in 2021, now worth $9 million over three years on his current extension.
The hiring also shifts Ujiri's calendar. He spent eleven weeks this spring meeting with agents, attending G League showcases, and privately auditing Dallas's analytics infrastructure, which multiple league sources describe as "a decade behind Phoenix." Schmitz ran similar infrastructure reviews in New Orleans and recommended $4 million in new hires across video coordination and player tracking. Expect Dallas to post openings for at least three analytics roles by early next week.
Schmitz's compensation sits near $2 million annually over four years, according to two people with knowledge of the deal. That places him in the middle tier of NBA general managers, below Toronto's Bobby Webster at roughly $3.5 million but above several recently promoted GMs earning closer to $1.2 million. The Mavericks also structured performance bonuses tied to playoff outcomes and draft-pick value, a framework Ujiri used in Toronto.
Watch for immediate hires. Schmitz is expected to bring at least one scout from his New Orleans network, likely someone with European expertise to support Dallas's international pipeline. The Mavericks have committed $18 million to Luka Doncic's supermax extension kickers through 2027 and need to find cheaper talent around him. Schmitz's next forty-eight hours involve meeting the scouting staff, reviewing June draft boards, and sitting down with Cuban-era holdovers who survived Ujiri's initial purge.
The Mavericks open Summer League in Las Vegas on July 12. Schmitz will run the roster.
The takeaway
Dallas hands full personnel control to the draft analyst who found rotation players in the second round while Ujiri focuses on infrastructure.
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