FRISCO, Texas — The Texas Legends introduced Nathaniel “Nate” Mitchell as head coach on Tuesday, six days after naming him the 10th head coach in franchise history. The Dallas Mavericks announced Mitchell’s dual role as a Dallas assistant and Legends head coach on Sept. 15, when first-year Mavericks coach Dusty May finalized his staff.
Mitchell spent the past two seasons as head coach of the Guangzhou Loong Lions in the Chinese Basketball Association. He replaces Max Hooper, who coached the Legends for one season after working as the Mavericks’ head video coordinator.
The congratulatory messages since the Legends’ announcement have been somewhat overwhelming for Mitchell, who did not expect that many. Dallas hired May on June 23, about 2½ months after Michigan beat UConn 69-63 for the 2026 national championship.
“I knew, obviously, every year there’s change in the NBA,” Mitchell said. “Obviously, you have representation in terms of agents that reach out to certain people for certain situations. Fortunately for me, like I said, the relationships that I’ve built over the years are at a point where I can sometimes pick up the phone and actually call the people that are in the decision-making process. So obviously, someone like Dusty, we’ve had a prior relationship, and I’m pretty sure he has a bunch. But just to be able to say, ‘Hey, coach, congratulations on your new job.’”
“Luckily for me, I told him, ‘Hey, congratulations on winning the championship,’ just months before that,” Mitchell continued. “So it wasn’t like a cold text that came up. It was really like, ‘Congratulations, I just finished my year. We’d really like to talk to you if we get a chance.’ And he picked up the phone and called me. We had a great conversation about it and said if we talk again, maybe something else can come of it. We spoke at Summer League. It was pretty good. And trying to go through that process and going through like the interview process that happened.”
“And so it was good, and some of the players, like even on the Mavs team, like when Caleb and P.J. were rookies, they were in Charlotte with me,” Mitchell added. “I think it helps to be a coach that if you’re able to help people when they were younger and then now they can actually vouch for you as a coach, ‘Oh no, he’s a good guy. He works on, he’s always in the gym helping us get better.’ And so P.J. was like, as a rookie, I was his player development coach in Charlotte. Like, so all those things, it pays to be a good person, I guess, at times. Just investing and having the equity with them. So that really, really helped, to be honest. So I think hands everywhere kind of helped that whole process of me landing here. And I’m really excited to be here.”
Mitchell spent 2018 to 2021 on James Borrego’s staff with the Charlotte Hornets. Charlotte drafted P.J. Washington 12th overall in 2019, and Caleb Martin joined the Hornets that summer as an undrafted free agent. Last season, Washington averaged 14.2 points, 7.0 rebounds, and 1.8 assists in 56 games for Dallas. Martin appeared in 58 games.
Mitchell knew May long before the Mavericks hired either of them. Canada Basketball added Mitchell to its senior men’s national team staff in 2016. Before Florida Atlantic hired May as its head coach in 2018, May was an assistant at Florida.
“Just being in the coaching ranks, I coached AAU before I even got to college or professionally,” Mitchell explained. “There was always recruiting out of our country, me being in Canada, obviously being in Toronto, the amount of players that have come out of there. Fortunately for me, being with the national team, you shake hands with a lot of coaches at times. He was one of them, to try to recruit players out of Canada.”
“Some of, I mean, he probably got Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to commit there before he went to Kentucky, and he got Andrew Nembhard to go into Florida, which was Ryan Nembhard’s brother, which played here last year, which is like a big coincidence,” Mitchell detailed. “Like, it was just, so all those little connects at times, just by being in the right place at the right time or knowing who’s who, I think has kind of led to those relationships. I’m just glad they all met at one time.”
Gilgeous-Alexander committed to Florida in 2016, decommitted that October, and signed with Kentucky. Andrew Nembhard played two seasons at Florida before transferring to Gonzaga. Ryan Nembhard signed a two-way contract with Dallas after going undrafted in 2025 and moved to a standard contract on March 1. In 60 games with the Mavericks, he averaged 6.6 points, 2.2 rebounds, and 5.3 assists.
Nate Mitchell Plans To Run Dusty May’s Mavericks Terminology In Frisco
Mitchell sat in on the Mavericks’ coaching retreats this offseason as a member of May’s staff. Three of the players he will coach in Frisco hold Dallas’ two-way contracts.
“I think the biggest thing is the coaching, from a coaching standpoint,” Mitchell said. “For me, being blessed with the opportunity to be on Dusty’s staff as well, preseason, postseason, like we had coaching retreats. I was involved in them. So trying to understand all the terminology offensively and defensively, all the things that we want to run as an organization with the Mavs. We want to try to implement those same things here. I think it’s very important with our player development that it’s also matching what they’re doing, so that our players that we continue to invest in and to better, that they’re getting the same treatment as they come up here to Frisco.”
“And I think that’s important that all coaches, all players understand that,” Mitchell noted. “And for me, I lived that. Being with the Raptors, I was a coach that was in the G League and got an opportunity to coach with the Raptors. And even when I was with the Raptors, I’d still go down and watch G League games. So I totally understood what was going on. I did the same thing when I was in Charlotte. I did the same thing when I was in Milwaukee. So it’s just really important to be intertwined with what’s going on up there and making sure all the terminology or just like the way we practice.”
“I understand I’m not Dusty,” Mitchell continued. “Coach has his way of coaching. I feel like I’ll have my way of coaching. But I think what has to be aligned are just firm rules, the style of play that we want to play, and then just for me putting my own twist on it as a coach as well, to make sure that our players understand, because we don’t have the same players that they have. So that’s kind of my job, to make sure that it’s seamless but transparent ways of getting things done.”
The Mavericks’ two-way contracts belong to John Poulakidas, Jett Howard, and Tobi Lawal. Poulakidas signed his two-way deal with Dallas on March 3 and averaged 8.8 points in 13 NBA games. Orlando selected Howard 11th overall in the 2023 NBA Draft, and he has averaged 4.5 points in 133 NBA games. In June, Dallas drafted Lawal 48th overall out of Virginia Tech.
All three have been working out every day with the Mavericks. Mitchell said that should help him install the system in Frisco, even with young players.
“Three different players,” Mitchell said. “Obviously, different skill sets, different experiences. Within those three that you’re talking about, you’re talking about shooting, athletic ability. Man, we might have the best athlete in the G League. And Tobi, so I feel like all those guys are working out every day with the Mavs. They’re getting better. They’re understanding the system. It should help me, even from a coaching standpoint, even though they’re young players, implementing systems down here when you already have people that have been able to do those things over a course of time.”
“So I’m really excited about those three and the continuance of building our roster from returning players, the draft coming up, local trials have been going on,” Mitchell added. “So just really excited about how this thing can go. And whatever is given to us and whatever we decide on, I’m willing to ride with and make things work.”
Texas has not announced its roster. On Sept. 17, the Legends traded the returning player rights to Emanuel Miller and the No. 4 pick in the 2026 NBA G League Draft to the Grand Rapids Gold. Texas received the No. 3 pick in the same draft, a 2027 first-round pick, and the returning player rights to three players who will play overseas this season.
Mitchell has built his coaching around being on the court with players and understanding them first as people, starting with their goals and where they are trying to get to. Serving players is one of the reasons he got into coaching.
“Obviously, being in the G League myself multiple times, I feel like this is something we always had to [deal with],” Mitchell said. “Obviously, in my situation now, it’s kind of making the decision rather than the suggestion. I feel like the best thing for me to do is understand and know all of our players as much as possible. The more I can do that, the more transparent I can be with them. We want to have like an open-door policy to have these discussions, being as positive as I can with them and being as open and honest as well. I think that’s very important.”
“Having these discussions prior and letting everybody know and understanding the nature of the G League, because sometimes you have young players that haven’t understood, really understand that, or haven’t been through that,” Mitchell continued. “Some of them are coming from college where they’ve been a mainstay the whole time, and that adjustment period to being professional, playing professional basketball, is totally different, especially in this case where there’s like priority people here when you’re talking about two-ways, assignment players, Exhibit 10 players, returning rights players, players that have played in the NBA that are none of those and want to get back to there.”
“And so like all those dynamics are important for us to understand,” Mitchell noted. “And the more I can understand that as a coach, I feel like it’s going to be better for the team and the organization, as well as the people that are supporting it. We can kind of manage all those things.”
Nate Mitchell Reunites With Masai Ujiri After Stops In Toronto, Charlotte, And Milwaukee
Mitchell started his G League career with the Maine Red Claws in 2014 before moving to Raptors 905, where he was an assistant on the team that won the 2016-17 G League championship. He worked on Nick Nurse’s staff with the Toronto Raptors from 2021 to 2023 while Masai Ujiri ran Toronto’s front office. Ujiri is now the Mavericks’ president of basketball operations and alternate governor.
“That was the Raptors in ’21-’23,” Mitchell said. “Prior to that, I did three years with Charlotte, but right before that, I did three years in the Raptors G League team. So actually, I was able to work for the organization on two different accounts, but in two different teams. Masai was there, and obviously he was the big boss, and we all respected him. We really liked what he did there. I’m actually really excited to see how he can implement all the things that he’s done in terms of success. He continues to speak about, if you hear him talk, he’s going to talk about winning and how much he says ‘win.’ You can count it. He can keep going.”
“And I think that mentality is important for all of us,” Mitchell added. “Again, the process should lead to those things, and you can’t lose that, and we know everything takes time. And for me, there’s an accountability phase with him, and I’m just trying to buy into everything that this organization wants to be, making sure everybody is accountable and that we’re going forth and having a good environment for everybody to be in, work within, and just mixing all of the different compartments of a professional team. You have the business side, you have front office, you have the players and the coaches. How do we all mesh well together to make this thing successful? The enemy or the battle is not outside. I mean, sorry, it’s not within. It’s outside. So we’ve got to be on one page and make sure we’re doing what’s necessary in order to be successful.”
Mitchell joined Adrian Griffin’s staff with the Milwaukee Bucks in 2023. Toronto fired Nurse in April 2023, and Milwaukee fired Griffin in January 2024, 43 games into his first season.
Process over results is the standard Mitchell set for the Legends in his first answer Tuesday. Professional sports are about winning, he said, but he does not think a team gets there without being dialed in on the process.
“I would say the versatility, the variability that comes into it as well, the unknown,” Mitchell said. “I mean, I’ve been fired twice in one year, and that has nothing particularly to do with me, and that’s what happens in the NBA sometimes. I’ve been a part of organizations for long periods, three, four years. Tristan’s talked about it before, like 10 years with an organization. There’s so much variability that happens in this professional game. And I just want to like kind of breathe that into our players about understanding where you’re at, where you’re trying to get to, staying focused on that and putting yourself in situations that you can be successful regardless. It might not be now, it might be later, but again, just boiling back into the process.”
“Like I know it’s reiterating that statement, but it’s really, that’s how you have to think about it, or else you’ll get lost in the result, and the emotions of this thing can take you on a ride that you don’t want to be on at times,” Mitchell continued. “So I feel like as long as we get back to the main thing, the main point of how are we getting better, what are our main goals, why did we make this decision, there’s nothing to really look back on to like be a negative situation. You’re trying to move forward, right? Be a great person. And at the end of the day, that’s what we’re really here for, right? Be a great person. We’re looking for highly talented people and great character. Like, those things mix, and I’m doing that with my staff as well. So I’m just really excited to be here and trying to divvy out those things.”
This season is Mitchell’s 13th coaching professionally, dating to the 2014-15 season in Maine. This summer was his 10th with Canada’s senior men’s national team program. He was an assistant for Canada at the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup, where Canada won bronze, and at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“I think I was counting the other day, this is my 13th professional year coaching,” Mitchell said. “Wow, sounds real long time. And I’ve probably coached under, I want to say, 13 different head coaches, with some of those stops, when you mix in being an assistant on the Canadian national team and the turnover at that time, along with the NBA teams. And sometimes you’re looking at, like when I was in Boston, I was underneath Scott Morrison, but I spent a month with Brad Stevens. When I was in Toronto, initially, I was underneath Dwane Casey, but I coached under Jesse Mermuys and Jerry Stackhouse. So, like, when you start adding it up over time, it adds up pretty quickly. And to pick out one person or one thing I can pick from them would be really, really tough.”
“I think the biggest consistent thing that I’ve seen, just be yourself,” Mitchell detailed. “Take care of yourself as a coach. This thing is a roller coaster. And I think that as you’re going through it, taking care of yourself, making sure you’re doing it the way that you’d like to do it, try and keep everybody as happy as possible. But that’s, those have probably been the most consistent things. And to be honest, it’s not really basketball oriented, because you’re still in this thing. Family is important. How you treat the people around you is important. And all the people that you’re going to work with. I’m excited to work with all the people that are here in this organization, the business team, again, front office and my new staff. So I’m really excited. I really want to get to work.”
Mitchell is still getting used to North Texas, and his family has not joined him yet. He was born in Toronto.
“There’s a big talk about barbecue here, so I’m gonna have to make sure I dive in that a little bit,” Mitchell said. “I mean, I’ve grown up in a Caribbean household. My mother and father’s Jamaican, so I’ve always been heavy on the Jamaican food, but down here, it’s big on barbecue. I can see football is huge. It’s not as huge in Canada. So just diving into that culture, to be honest. Obviously, I’ve lived in the U.S. before, but probably not this west and not this south. So I’m very excited to just embrace myself in the culture and understand what was going on. They already gave me a cowboy hat to try during media. And so, yeah, I’m just really excited.”
The Legends open the season Sunday, Nov. 8, at the Mexico City Capitanes, with tip-off at 6:30 p.m. CT. The home opener is Friday, Nov. 13, against the Rio Grande Valley Vipers at Comerica Center at 7 p.m. CT.
