Michigan Basketball: Juwan Howard isn’t headed for the NBA, yet
Juwan Howard will be a head coach in the NBA at some point, but he’s not leaving his job with Michigan basketball anytime soon.
As with his counterpart on the football team, it looks like Michigan basketball coach Juwan Howard is going to be subject to rumors about coaching at the professional level quite often.
Howard hasn’t even finished his second season in Ann Arbor as Michigan basketball coach and already the rumors have swirled, with the most recent being a report from ESPN that Howard was going to be a hot commodity, especially if the Wolverines make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament.
In terms of ESPN (subscription required), you have to give it credit for that groundbreaking bit of reporting. No one in their right mind could have predicted that NBA teams would be interested in Howard, a former NBA All-Star, long-time NBA assistant, and proven winner at the college level.
Color me shocked, truly.
Forget the fact that Howard interviewed for head-coaching jobs in the league before taking over at Michigan, so it’s not like the interest wasn’t there before. It probably never died down.
That’s why I’m not worried about this recent rumor. If Howard wanted to be an NBA head coach, he probably would be right now. He also likely wouldn’t have taken the job at Michigan.
Howard wanted to be at Michigan, not in the NBA
When the job opened and Howard’s name started getting mentioned, some asked whether or not he was qualified. I was just worried about whether or not he would be interested.
The T-Wolves and other NBA teams were showing interest in him and it was pretty clear that was he on that shortlist of hot, young candidates.
With the way the NBA throws out coaches, Howard would have gotten his opportunity by now. In fact, he would have likely gotten that chance if he turned down the Michigan basketball job.
He didn’t. Howard truly loves the University of Michigan and even though there’s a good chance he will leave for the NBA, I believe he is going to try his best to win an NCAA title before he does.
Maybe that’s naive or maybe the turnaround is a lot quicker than expected when he was hired, but I’m not worried at all about Howard leaving for the NBA this offseason.
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Unless of course, the Wolverines do win it all. And then if it happens, like Cleveland after LeBron led the Cavs to a title, we would probably forgive him. Hell, we’d cheer like crazy on his way out.