Michigan Alum Rich Is Still Processing Dusty May Taking the Mavs’ HC Job

Rich is a Michigan man, and he is still not entirely over it. Dusty May left Ann Arbor for the Dallas Mavericks, and the show spent a segment turning the decision over like a puzzle that does not quite fit.

May himself had explained the genesis. It started with a single conversation. "The very first conversation, whenever I bumped into Masai and Mike in Chicago," May said, he still had full intentions of returning to Michigan no matter what. The talk had nothing to do with the job. Then, while discussing his players, three of whom were headed to the lottery, someone asked whether he had any interest. "My eyes went up, and instantly I said this one checks all the boxes."

That sent Rich into detective mode. Where in Chicago? The Big Ten tournament had been there, but the timing did not line up. Jason Kidd was not fired until May 19th, and Michigan had played Tennessee back on March 29th. The likely answer was the combine, where college coaches often turn up to watch their guys work out. That, the show reasoned, was where the seed got planted, right around the time Dallas was also talking to Jon Scheyer, according to Windhorst.

Here is where Rich's fandom crept in. He admitted he was taking a different approach to this than O'Shea Jackson Jr. was taking to LeBron James. But part of him could not shake the feeling that Michigan is simply not a program that says whatever it costs, we will match it. He imagined a booster culture willing to give May a dollar more than the Mavericks and push the NIL higher, then conceded he was not sure that is Michigan's DNA.

What grounded the whole conversation was May's own honesty about the dream. He was not chasing the NBA. "I was probably 25 and I was incredibly ambitious and I was trying to get to the top quickly," May said. Then he and his wife started having children, and his entire perspective changed. He wanted to enjoy who he worked with and who he coached, and to be the best coach he could be.

"As far as dreaming about coaching in the NBA, I never dreamed of coaching in the NBA," May said. He never dreamed of coaching in college either. He only ever pictured being a coach, maybe in high school, in his state. "This wasn't a dream, but now I've been preparing for this to go against the best for a long time."

That last line stuck with Rich. He remembered May joining the show the morning after cutting down the nets, already thinking about the transfer portal, already grinding, mentioning that some coaches were watching tape that same night. The counterexample got a laugh. Mike Brown, Rich noted, was not grinding tape the next morning. That is the NBA gift waiting for May. At some point, he and his family actually get to enjoy the fruits of the labor.