Masai Ujiri’s rise to Mavericks: From no cell phone to leading the Cooper Flagg era

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Masai Ujiri's talent for relationship-building has helped him reach the top of the basketball world. Tim Heitman / NBAE via Getty Images

As David Thorpe prepared to head to Atlanta for the Final Four in 2002, he received an email from a young man he met in Boston a few years earlier. Masai Ujiri, who had been playing professional basketball in low-level leagues across Europe, wanted to get into coaching.

Thorpe, a professional skills trainer for more than 25 years and a partner in the media company TrueHoop, wrote Ujiri back and asked if he could meet in Atlanta. Once Ujiri was there, Thorpe took him to dinner with longtime Florida State men’s basketball coach Leonard Hamilton. Thorpe also lent Ujiri a piece of hardware that wasn’t as ubiquitous as it is now: his cell phone.