Mike Schmitz’s rise to becoming the Dallas Mavericks general manager began with a cold email.In 2012, Schmitz reached out to Jonathan Givony, the founder of the basketball scouting service DraftExpress. Schmitz sent Givony a video of him analyzing a prospect named Perry Jones, a 6-foot-11 big man from Baylor who could handle the ball unusually well for his size. Schmitz told Givony he wanted to create videos of 30 different prospects and put them on DraftExpress for free.“I think he heard the price point and jumped all over it,” Schmitz said.That was how Schmitz got his start as a talent evaluator. In 2017, Schmitz and Givony began working for ESPN. Five years later, the Portland Trail Blazers hired Schmitz as their assistant general manager. Schmitz was with Portland for four years until newly installed Dallas Mavericks president Masai Ujiri hired him away in early May.“Mike is one of the most respected evaluators and basketball minds in the NBA,” Ujiri said in the Mavericks’ press release. “He brings intelligence, discipline, humility and a relentless work ethic to everything he does.”On Friday, The Athletic sat down with Schmitz to discuss his basketball background, the upcoming NBA Draft, Dallas’ coaching search and more. (Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)Tell me about your playing background.I was a basketball junkie since I was 3. I had a ball in my hand. Didn’t come from an athletic family — just was an active kid who fell in love with the game at a young age. I played four years in high school. I was a late bloomer. I was like 5-foot-6, 130 pounds when I was 17. I looked like I was 12. Took a lot of floaters. I grew 6 or 7 inches in the summer. I had a very average high school career. At that point, I just wanted to find a way to stay involved with basketball. That’s what led me to breaking down film. Creative videos. Working in the G League in my first year out of college as my first job.How much did you get to scout Cooper Flagg in the lead-up to last year’s draft? What were your notes on him as a prospect?Really closely. I have been watching him for years, everything from EYBL to his (2022 FIBA Under-17 Basketball World Cup) in Malaga, Spain. They won gold. I think he was 15 at the time. Been very familiar with his game and his trajectory.Just super impressive so far. The level of talent, the attention to detail, the competitiveness, the way he carries himself. He’s not a typical 19-year-old. That’s one of the many reasons I’m so excited about all we can do here in Dallas.Was there anything he did in his rookie year in Dallas that surprised you?I wouldn’t say surprised. It’s just to see a guy at the time be 18 years old — then 19 years old — to be able to have such a winning impact. Usually, even with a No. 1 pick, it takes some time to impact winning. Defensively, offensively, all of the details. The I.Q. He has a lot of traits you see from veterans. That’s the thing that really stood out. This isn’t just a young guy putting up numbers. He’s actually impacting winning. That’s very rare. That’s one of the many things that make him such a unique young player.You guys have pick Nos. 9, 30 and 48 in the upcoming draft. How does this draft compare to previous drafts you have scouted?Really excited about No. 9. Really like the potential outcomes there. Every year, there are guys who go too low and guys who go too high. Our job is to find the ones that went too low. I’m very confident we can get a difference-maker at No. 9 and another player to add to our core. So that speaks to this draft, obviously.I think the thing you want, above all else, is optionality and tools to get better. The fact that we have that is really exciting.You spent four years in Portland. How do you feel like you guys drafted as a group during that time?I think the main thing I’m proud of, and can speak to, is our process to make the decisions we made. That’s a big part of my job. Are we gathering all the necessary intel? Are we looking at the games in different ways? Do we have an infrastructure that’s allowing us to digest all the video and look at all the analytics and study everyone’s live evaluations? All those things together. Proud of the process we had in place to come to those decisions.That’s the goal we want to bring here, too: Create a process that’s going to lead to the outcomes we want.A big move you guys made in Portland was trading for Deni Avdija, who was an All-Star this past season. What did you see there that made him someone you wanted to acquire?I think it’s important to value the predraft evaluations, and not just in the predraft (process). You are building a file on a player, right? You want to update that file as you get into their NBA career. How are they improving? How are they not improving? To have a clear picture of different roles. Players who played in previous stops. Those are the things we are always going to be evaluating. How does a guy play when he’s the man versus when he’s the role player?We’re looking at all those things.Where are the Mavericks at in terms of the coaching search?Masai has done a great job, along with our leadership, of spearheading that and leading that. We are evaluating different options and looking for a handful of different traits. Whether that be leadership, communication, collaboration, being a driving force in the alignment we want in the organization, a level of accountability — those are all factors we are looking at in this.Obviously, (we’re) scanning the market and understanding who some of the options are. We don’t have an exact timeline on it, but we are going to go through all the right processes to make the right decision. It’s obviously a huge hire and something we’re invested in getting right.