MACAO — Fans packed the team hotel when the Dallas Mavericks arrived in Macao for the NBA China Games. Rookie Morez Johnson Jr. wants to play in front of them Friday night against the Houston Rockets at The Venetian Arena.
Johnson talked after Wednesday’s practice. Dallas drafted him No. 9 overall June 23, the same day it hired Mavericks coach Dusty May, who coached him at Michigan.
Johnson has been ramping up in camp. On Oct. 2, May said Johnson was playing a lot of 5-on-5 and was much closer, but he did not say whether Johnson would play in Macao.
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Johnson came into the NBA with no expectations beyond playing basketball. The China trip was news to him, too.
“It’s great. So I didn’t have any expectations of how the NBA will be. I was just looking forward to playing basketball, but it’s so many behind the scenes stuff that I’m enjoying,” Johnson said. “Stuff they don’t talk about on TV, but I’m enjoying it here with my teammates. I didn’t know anything about us going to China, and I’m just grateful to be here. It’s a new part of the world.”
This is the Mavericks’ first trip to China since 2018, when Dallas played the Philadelphia 76ers in Shanghai and Shenzhen. Friday would be Johnson’s first NBA game, and fans were already waiting when the team got to its hotel.
“It was packed inside the hotel, too, up top. It was crazy. It was like, what time we get in? We got in there like 11, I want to say, and it was a bunch of fans out there,” Johnson explained. “I’m grateful for it. I can’t wait to get out here and play Friday night in front of all of them.”
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Johnson is from Riverdale, Ill., and played his freshman season at Illinois before transferring to Michigan in April 2025. He started all 40 games for the Wolverines’ national championship team and averaged 13.1 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 1.1 blocks while shooting 62.3% from the field. In the 69-63 title game win over UConn, he had 12 points and 10 rebounds on 5-of-7 shooting.
At Summer League in Las Vegas, Johnson totaled 37 points, 13 rebounds, and 6 blocks across Dallas’ first two games before missing the final three with an illness.
Johnson isn’t setting targets for his first NBA games. He is going to do what the coaches ask and let the rest come.
“I’ll say if I put expectations on it, that’s when you start thinking too much,” Johnson said. “I’m just going out there and doing whatever the coach want me to do, trying to make my teammates better, myself, and whatever it’s meant for me going to happen on its own.”
Dallas and Houston meet Friday at 6:30 a.m. CT and again Sunday at 4:30 a.m. CT, with both games airing on NBA TV. The Mavericks open the regular season Oct. 21 at 7:30 p.m. CT in Houston.
