Michigan Basketball: 3 Reasons Juwan Howard won’t leave for NBA

Howard has plenty of time

In an ideal world, Michigan would have Jim Harbaugh and Howard as their football and basketball head coaches for the next 20 years.

People might object to Jim staying for that long, but his level of consistent winning pales in comparison to the previous regimes and has at least restored Michigan to its place among the top 10-15 programs in America.

As far as Howard, he’s going to keep Michigan basketball among the elite programs. John Beilein got Michigan back in that conversation with two trips to the national title game.

With Juwan’s ability to recruit and his coaching expertise, Michigan should have a strong chance of making another run at a title and multiple Final Fours with Howard. I fully expect that to happen.

But like Brad Stevens, I also expect Howard to pursue that next challenge of winning in the NBA at some point. It’s a logical next step, especially for someone who played for over a decade.

Yet, we have a good 8-10 years before we need to worry about that.

The rumors will swirl, especially as Juwan gets more successful, and someday, the right job, at the right time, will lure him away.

But Juwan is in Ann Arbor for the long haul and my guess is he wants to hang some new banners at Crisler before taking that next step.