Why You Care: Dusty May is coming off a national championship-winning season with the University of Michigan, but there were no indications he was ready to leave the maize and blue. There were even fewer indications that May was on the NBAβs radar. Yet the Mavericks have decided to take the leap, hiring May to succeed the perfectly average Jason Kidd after five seasons at the helm. (When I say perfectly average, I mean it β Kiddβs record as Mavs coach was 205-205.)
We have several instances of coaches jumping from college to the pros, and that history contains more failures than it does successes. Going back, coaches such as Rick Pitino (192-220) and John Calipari (72-112) showed how hard it is to make the jump. After five wildly successful seasons at Iowa State, Fred Hoiberg took the Chicago Bulls job and managed a 115-155 record in three seasons and change before heading back to the college ranks.
May is following in the footsteps of John Beilein, a successful coach at Michigan before testing his skills in the NBA. To say it didnβt go well would be a massive understatement β Beilein lasted 54 games of the 2019-2020 with the Cavaliers before he was βreassigned to a different role within the organization,β presumably as part of the janitorial staff.
Two big names who recently left the college game found middling success, although one has done more damage away from the bench.
Billy Donovan dominated the NCAA coaching the Florida Gators, winning back-to-back titles in 2006 and 2007. He stuck around for eight more seasons in Gainesville before taking over the Oklahoma City Thunder. Donovan posted a 243-157 record with the Thunder, but after making the Western Conference finals in his first season, he never won another playoff series, despite getting an MVP season from Russell Westbrook and rostering Paul George and Carmelo Anthony during this stretch. Donovan left Oklahoma City for Chicago (way to learn your lesson) and went 226-256 in six seasons, making the playoffs a grand total of once. For some reason, Bulls leadership seemed intent on giving Donovan even more power recently, but he put them out of their misery and resigned instead.
Perhaps the best case for Dusty May and the Mavs is Brad Stevens. After turning tiny Butler University into an NCAA tournament monster across six seasons, the Celtics came calling and Stevens answered. Stevens coached the Celtics from 2013-2021, compiling a 354-282 record and reaching the Eastern Conference finals three times without advancing any further. In 2021, he kicked upstairs with the title of president of basketball operations, and during his reign as lead executive, the Celtics have won an NBA title and made an additional Finals appearance.
Can May avoid the fate of most of these guys and instead emulate Stevens, the most successful of the college-to-pros pipeline? I guess itβs possible, and the fact that he was hired by Masai Ujiri, a man who has built an NBA champ in Toronto of all places, lends some credence to the decision. But college athletes and professionals cannot be coached the same, and the game ramps up in speed and intensity exponentially from the Big Ten to the NBA. Something makes me think the Mavs will be on the coaching hunt again before we know it. |
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