Jun 22, 2026, 10:19 AM ETOpen Extended Reactions

Michigan coach Dusty May is finalizing a deal to take the Dallas Mavericks' head coaching job, sources told ESPN, an axis-shifting move that significantly alters the college and NBA landscapes.

May, 49, led Michigan basketball to the national title in 2026. He'll coach a franchise with Cooper Flagg as a linchpin player. The Mavericks fired Jason Kidd after a 26-56 season last year.

May led Michigan to a 64-13 record over two seasons in Ann Arbor. In his previous job, he led Florida Atlantic to back-to-back NCAA tournaments, including the 2023 Final Four. He had ruled out other college jobs this offseason, but the NBA has always been intriguing to May.

He's the first college head coach to take an NBA job since former Michigan coach John Beilein took the Cleveland Cavaliers job in 2019. The last to leave college immediately after winning a national title was Kansas' Larry Brown in 1988. Florida's Billy Donovan was the most recent NCAA title-winning coach to leave for the NBA in 2015.

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The move puts May in charge of the Mavericks' next generation, which is being crafted around Flagg, the NBA's Rookie of the Year last season after leading Dallas by scoring 21.0 points per game. The move puts Michigan in a sudden state of flux after the Wolverines' dominant run to the NCAA title. Michigan appeared well positioned to repeat, as ESPN's Jeff Borzello ranked Michigan No. 3 in his early Top 25 rankings.

May's departure means that Michigan's players can explore their future options, as under NCAA rules a 15-day transfer window will open five days after a new head coach is hired or publicly announced.

Michigan is working toward hiring current assistant coach Mike Boynton Jr. as interim coach, per sources. Boynton brings head coaching experience from Oklahoma State and will attempt to keep a talented roster in place.

That roster includes Final Four Most Outstanding Player Elliot Cadeau, talented rising sophomore Trey McKenney and a new crop of talented transfers that includes J.P. Estrella, Moustapha Thiam and Jalen Reed.

The Mavericks parted ways with Kidd soon after hiring new president and alternate governor Masai Ujiri to run the franchise's basketball operations department despite owing Kidd more than $40 million over the remaining four years on his contract.

The Mavs went 205-205 in five seasons under Kidd, highlighted by Dallas' runs to the 2022 Western Conference finals and 2024 NBA Finals. However, the Mavs didn't make the playoffs the past two seasons after the stunning, controversial trade of superstar Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers in February 2025, a move that ultimately resulted in the firing of general manager Nico Harrison in November.

League sources told ESPN's Tim MacMahon that Dallas also gauged the interest of Duke's Jon Scheyer, who coached Flagg during his lone season in college, as they searched for Kidd's replacement. That process also included interviews with several NBA assistant coaches, but the Mavs prioritized recruiting May.

The arc of May's rise has been similar to that of the Boston Celtics' Brad Stevens, who parlayed two national title game appearances at Butler to the Celtics' head coaching job in July 2013.

May emerged as one of the sport's promising young coaches after leading No. 9-seed FAU of Conference USA to the 2023 Final Four. The Owls lost a one-point game to San Diego State in the Final Four. May authored impressive back-to-back seasons of 35-4 and 25-9 while at FAU.

In his last four seasons as a head coach in college, he went 124-26. In 2025, Michigan lost to No. 1 seed Auburn in the Sweet 16.

Over that time, May's reputation blossomed, both as a tactical coach in games and a coach who understands roster construction and what players work together on the floor. That includes oversized lineups, as Michigan became the antidote for the small-ball revolution in college basketball by effectively playing multiple big men.

During Michigan's championship parade in April, athletic director Warde Manuel announced May had agreed to a new deal that would keep him at Michigan for "many years to come." That deal wasn't signed at the time of Manuel's proclamation, and no deal announcement emerged in the subsequent months.

May is a former Indiana basketball manager who grinded his way up the coaching ladder, including a stop at USC as a video coordinator and assistant jobs at Eastern Michigan, Murray State, UAB, Louisiana Tech and Florida.

That hopscotching around the country led him to the head job at FAU in 2018.