Just a few months after Dusty May coached Michigan to a national championship, he is off to the NBA to take the same role with the Mavericks.
May's exit from Ann Arbor and move to Dallas, where he will coach 2025 No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg, was a shock to the college basketball and NBA worlds on the eve of the draft. ESPN first reported the news.
The Wolverines went 37-3 this past season, May's second with the team, and earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. After a Sweet 16 exit in his first year at Michigan, May loaded up in the transfer portal, landing eventual All-American Yaxel Lendeborg. The Wolverines were projected to open the 2026 season as one of the top teams in the country yet again, but they will now be under new leadership.
May is taking over a Mavs roster centered around Flagg that is in some ways still reeling from the Luka Dončić trade. Kyrie Irving will be back in the fold after missing the entire 2025-26 season. And Dallas owns the No. 9 pick in tonight's draft, which it could potentially use to select one of May's former players.
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It was not long ago that May was the head coach at Florida Atlantic. After two Final Four trips, a national title and a 190-82 record over eight college seasons, he's now one of 30 NBA head coaches.
May is hardly the first coach to make the jump from the NCAA to the NBA — and he won't be the last. But there is a somewhat checkered history of coaches who made the transition before him. Here are some of the most famous examples.
Brad Stevens
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Stevens broke into the college coaching ranks at just 30 years old in the 2007-08 season at Butler after several years as an assistant on staff. He coached the Bulldogs to five NCAA Tournament appearances, including back-to-back Final Four trips in 2010 and 2011.
After the Celtics traded coach Doc Rivers to the Clippers in 2013, Boston hired Stevens as its next head coach. He coached the C's for eight seasons, including three separate trips to the Eastern Conference Finals, before he took a front-office role in 2021 as the president of basketball operations. Boston made the NBA Finals the following season and won the title in 2024.
College Record: 166-49
NBA Record: 354-282
Billy Donovan
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Donovan got his start as an assistant coach for Rick Pitino at Kentucky before Marshall made him the youngest head coach in the country at 28. He spent just two seasons with the Thundering Herd before he landed the Florida job. Donovan helped turn the Gators into a powerhouse program, culminating in back-to-back titles in 2006 and 2007. He became the winningest coach in school history across 19 seasons at Florida, where the court is named in his honor.
In 2015, Donovan was named head coach of the Thunder. Oklahoma City made the playoffs in all five seasons he was at the helm, but the team only advanced out of the first round in his debut. The two sides did not agree on an extension, and Donovan was hired as head coach of the Bulls in 2020. Chicago has only made one postseason appearance since then and Donovan's name often comes up when high-profile college jobs open.
College Record: 502-206
NBA Record: 469-413
John Calipari
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Calipari's decorated and lengthy coaching career started at UMass in 1988. Eight promising years in charge of the Minutemen earned him an opportunity in the NBA to coach the Nets, though Calipari was fired early on in his third season and never returned to the pros.
Calipari returned to the college ranks as the head coach at Memphis and later Kentucky, where he won the 2012 national title. After 15 seasons with the Wildcats, Calipari left for Arkansas in 2024. He remains the coach of the Razorbacks.
College Record: 905-286
NBA Record: 72-112
Rick Pitino
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Pitino's legendary coaching career technically started at Hawaii, where he served as the interim coach for a few games in 1976. But he got his first head coaching job at Boston University in 1978. Success with the Terriers led to a brief NBA dalliance as an assistant with the Knicks. It wouldn't be his last.
Pitino took over as the head coach at Providence in 1985, but he returned to the pros when he took the Knicks' top job in 1987. He resigned after just two seasons in New York and again went back to the college game at Kentucky, where he won the 1996 title. Two years later, he tried his hand in the pros again as head coach of the Celtics. That, too, was a short stay before he resigned and returned to his college roots.
The next act for Pitino was his longest and most successful — but it was also shrouded in controversy. He spent 16 seasons at Louisville, where he won the 2013 championship. But that title, as well as a few seasons' worth of wins, were vacated after an NCAA investigation into a sex scandal.
Pitino left the college ranks for a few years to coach overseas, but he returned in 2020 at Iona. A few successful seasons in charge of the Gaels landed him the opportunity to return to the power conference ranks at St. John's, which he has transformed back into a contender.
College Record: 915-318
NBA Record: 192-220
