DALLAS — Getting the right medical staff in charge is the Dallas Mavericks’ number one priority, president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri said Friday. Dallas named Nico Berg its executive director of health and performance one day earlier as part of 17 basketball operations moves.
Berg is a physiotherapist who has worked across the NBA, NFL, and NHL. He earned a bachelor of science in physical therapy from the University of British Columbia and a master’s degree in physiotherapy from the University of Queensland. From 2010 to 2014, Berg consulted for the Minnesota Timberwolves on core strength, performance, and injury prevention. He was most recently co-owner and physiotherapist at Lynn Valley Orthopedic and Sports Physiotherapy.
Ujiri spent 13 seasons with the Toronto Raptors before Dallas hired him May 4. He worked with Alex McKechnie for 12 of those years.
Finding the right person for the role was a grind, Ujiri explained, especially given what the organization has gone through in the last couple of years. Interviewing many different kinds of medical people led the team to Berg, and his time with McKechnie shaped what he looked for.
“It’s one of those positions that’s very, it’s a grind to find that right person, and we believe we found the right one,” Ujiri said. “The process was interviewing a lot of people, and the process was interviewing a lot of different kinds of medical people. In this space, I was [in] Toronto. I had Alex McKechnie for 12 years, and that taught me a lot. But it also taught me that I had one of the best guys in the NBA.”
“We had to find the right guy, and we had to go to the right places, and Nico Berg is the right guy,” Ujiri continued. “He ran his own clinic. He had worked in the NBA before as a consultant. He knows NBA players. He’s worked closely with medical people in the NBA, lots of contacts, the patients, the hands, the person, we believe the qualifications, we believe we got the [right] person.”
Masai Ujiri On Injuries And Games Played
Injuries are a sensitive subject, Ujiri acknowledged, and one he is not afraid to talk about. Some players are built differently, he noted, some injuries are freak injuries, and the organization has to know the data on how to handle each one. The responsibility is the same whether a player appears in 10 games or 82, he added.
“This is our jobs, and I know these guys going with the right heart, with the right passion and the right energy to go do it,” Ujiri explained. “We have to pay attention to it. We have to pay attention to different players, to their bodies. … Some of them are constant or tissue or however you want to categorize these things, but it’s very, very important that the organization has the right medical staff and is taking all the measures and know the data of how we should be dealing with this injury.”
“So amount of games, for me, whether it’s 10 games, whether it’s 82, it’s a responsibility of us as an organization to take care of these players and put them in the right environment to perform, no matter how we think of it,” Ujiri added. “Is there overtraining? There’s so many things you can actually put in or consider with these things, but I think we’re all trying to figure it out, but getting the right staff and the right people in charge is the number one priority for us.”
The Mavericks also named Ally Wade director of mind health. Wade spent six years as director of mental health services for SMU Athletics before three years as a licensed psychologist at Dallas Mental Health and Performance.
Masai Ujiri On Kyrie Irving And Dereck Lively II
Kyrie Irving tore the ACL in his left knee March 3, 2025, and has not played in an NBA game since. He said at media day Friday that he has no restrictions entering camp. Ujiri described Irving as “right there” in terms of health and pointed to his energy at the team’s photo shoot Friday morning.
“He hasn’t played any competitive game in terms of an NBA game yet,” Ujiri said. “But even this morning, taking pictures, his spirit is incredible, and I’m proud to have a guy like that with that kind of talent on our team.”
Dereck Lively II had season-ending surgery on his right foot in December after playing seven games. Lively has progressed from shooting to running on the court, according to Ujiri, and the team will stay patient because of what a foot injury means for a 7-footer.
“I said it from day one that that’s the approach we’re going to take is being patient with D-Live, because none of us here know what it’s like, one, to have an injury like that, two, to be seven foot one, two, and carry all of that on that foot,” Ujiri said. “It takes patience, it takes expertise, and we’ve gotten that. It takes patience from his agency, from him. It takes watching him, his feeling. He’s been in here every day, has worked really hard, and we’re happy with where it is, but there will be patience till we get this right.”
Training camp opens Saturday. Dallas plays the Houston Rockets at The Venetian Arena in Macao on Oct. 9 and Oct. 11.
