Why Dusty May Left Michigan For the Dallas Mavericks

Rich wanted an answer to a question that still stung a little. Why is Dusty May no longer coaching at his alma mater?

Brian Windhorst did not dress it up. "The NIL is hell," he told Rich. "It's hell."

The details, as Windhorst laid them out, explain how a coach walks away from Michigan. May had agreed to a contract extension in Ann Arbor. He never signed it. Windhorst's read was that May was eyeing something bigger. Had Steve Kerr retired, May would have been on the short list for the Warriors. Other teams with openings had interest too.

The Mavericks were the ones who landed him, and the path there was not a straight line. Dallas wanted a championship coach and went hunting for exactly that, Windhorst said, but none of the proven NBA champions could get released from their current teams. So they circled back.

First on the list was Jon Scheyer. According to Windhorst, Scheyer said no. He wants to win a championship at Duke before he considers anything else, intent on continuing the program's legacy. Dallas did not take one swing at him either. After failing to land the established champions, Windhorst said, they returned to Scheyer and asked again. "Are you sure you don't want to coach Cooper Flagg?" The answer was still no.

That refusal, in Windhorst's telling, only made the offer to May more lucrative. Dallas got a coach who arrives with the chance to draft one of his own players from the jump. Windhorst pointed to a detail that captured May's stock perfectly. While still representing Michigan, May had three players drafted inside 15 minutes.

The financial picture sealed it. The Mavericks owner is the second wealthiest in the league behind Steve Ballmer, Windhorst noted, and while May did not win an NBA title, he is being paid as if he did.

Windhorst framed the move as close to risk-free. May gets Cooper Flagg, a job that checks boxes most coaches never see, and the security that comes with a package like that. And if it does not work out in Dallas?

"He can always go back," Windhorst said. "It's kind of a no-brainer."