Searchbits IV: Let's Just Get Juwan Howard Done Already
A Frontrunner, Finally
For the first time I'd put money on one specific guy versus the field: Juwan Howard. A public discussion of a search firm getting in contact is somewhat unusual:
Juwan Howard tells me #Michigan has retained Turnkey Sports for its coaching search. Howard has spoken with them and has been informed that Wolverines AD Warde Manuel is very interested in speaking with him.
— Jordan Schultz (@Schultz_Report) May 17, 2019
The stuff that is filtering out after people start doing their diligence on him is universally positive. I mean, at this point just get it done and start trying to piece together the program again. If the next names on the list are Frank Martin and Ed Cooley they come with less upside and just as much downside—a new coach in a few years.
Meanwhile, time is ticking…
Exit Yak?
The fun, it continues. Shaka Smart interviews Yaklich…
Texas coach Shaka Smart spent Thursday talking with Michigan assistant Luke Yaklich about filling the Longhorns’ current opening on the men’s basketball staff, two sources familiar with the interview said.
Yaklich, known as Michigan’s top defensive assistant on former coach John Beilein’s staff, could not be reached Thursday. He’s spent the last two seasons with the Wolverines and widely credited with engineering a defensive overhaul.
…and it's going to be tough for him to turn to a solid offer when Michigan's in a state of flux. Yaklich's son is a junior in high school and maybe they don't want to move the family. But Michigan would be advised to make something happen quickly unless they want to lose him.
[After THE JUMP: Shaka day comes and goes; the NBA to college failure semi-myth]
As the prophecy foretold
Shaka Smart panic day has come, and it's seemingly gone. From the same Yaklich article:
Smart’s name has been mentioned by some in Michigan circles as a possible candidate for the Wolverines. However, two Texas sources indicated Thursday that nothing has happened.
Quinn says Smart is "not a candidate," flat out and LaVall Jordan is "quite unlikely."
Now we get to our first fun semantics period of this coaching search. Quinn responds when asked for clarification:
1) I can't and wouldn't speak to/for something someone else reports. 2) I consider a candidate to be someone who has been contacted directly by the school or the search firm and is a viable option to be hired.
— Brendan Quinn (@BFQuinn) May 17, 2019
Sam insisted that he's a guy getting serious discussion with guys high up in the search. So did Rivals. Both things can be true: Shaka is being seriously discussed but the trigger has not been pulled on any sort of approach. At this point that would seemingly put him behind in the pecking order. The fact that Howard is an assistant and Smart is a head coach does complicate that calculus significantly—people get way less mad about assistants interviewing elsewhere.
Juwan Howard isn't NBA player X who did a bad job
One of the complaints about hiring Juwan Howard is the generally dismal record of NBA stars who jump to college head coaching gigs. I'm not here to dismiss that concern. It is a bit ominous. But I would like to turn the volume on it down a bit. Many of the guys cited had absolutely no track record as a coach or were stuck in situations where it's tough to dig out. A brief survey:
N/A
Donyell Marshall and Damon Stoudemire spent most of their coaching careers as college assistants and don't really apply to this conversation. The jury remains out on Patrick Ewing.
NO EXPERIENCE AT ALL
Chris Mullin at St Johns and Clyde Drexler at Houston had never held a coaching job of any description before getting head coaching gigs at their alma maters. Both bombed out, though you could argue that Mullin's one play-in bid in four years isn't far off from St John's recent norm. They had just two bids in the decade preceding Mullin's hire. Isiah Thomas had a brief and hilarious tenure at FIU and given all his other issues should be held in a separate category of total galoot.
BAD EXPERIENCE
Terry Porter is the coach at Portland. Mike Dunleavy is at Tulane. Reggie Theus had a good year at New Mexico State in 2007, jumped to the NBA, and then wandered back to a Cal State Northridge program that had managed two 15 seeds since 2000.
None of these guys had success. All had tenures as an NBA head coach that went badly. Porter lasted two season in Milwaukee and then got fired 51 games into a single season in Phoenix. Dunleavy was coming off a Clippers tenure in which he made the playoffs once; he has a 46% career winning percentage. Theus lasted barely more than a season in Sacramento. All three got fired midway through the year.
The only guy to have any period of success was Dunleavy, who had a few solid years in Portland, and that was 15 years past when Tulane pulled him off the scrap heap. He had not coached for six years prior to that hire.
OKAY YEAH NOT GREAT
Mark Price got the UNC Charlotte job; they had taken a major step back from their aughts heyday under Bobby Lutz when Alan Major's five-year tenure resulted in no bids and no teams better than 129th in Kenpom. Price was gone after two losing years and appears to have cratered the roster. Charlotte's finished 308th and 297th in Kenpom the last two years, which is by far their Kenpom-era nadir.
Danny Manning had a two year tenure at Tulsa that ended with a 13-3 CUSA season and a bid; this got him the Wake Forest job, where he's had one play-in bid and four horrendous seasons.
FINE OR BETTER
Avery Johnson just got fired after four years at Alabama in which he had between 18 and 20 wins and between 15 and 16 losses every year. Three NIT bids; he got to the second round of the tourney once. This is more or less exactly what his predecessor did.
Dan Majerle is doing a solid job at Grand Canyon, a program that did not exist before his tenure.
Fred Hoiberg was an unqualified success at Iowa State. Eric Musselman was mostly an NBA guy before three years as a college assistant.
So?
Hiring coaches is always a crapshoot but the problem with NBA to college transitions is not inexperience with college but the fact that the coaches in question aren't any good. Three of the above listed never coached before or after their disastrous tenures; three more had been out of coaching for years after lots of poor results before being revived.
Hiring Howard would be a risk, and the NBA to college transition is part of it. But he's not your average NBA-to-college transitioner. Those guys are usually crazy fliers, retreads, or established mediocrities. Howard is none of those.
Howard will have a senior PG and a senior C, both of whom are very good players. He will also bring back a very good 6th man in Livers and some promising second year players. His first season won't be that bad. I'm actually more concerned about year 2 for him, considering how this recruiting class is falling apart.
for comparison, Patrick Ewing's worst year is 15-15.
Feeling better and better about Howard, as long as we get this done quickly and keep Yak around. And frankly, I see him as a fairly high floor candidate- he should recruit well, comes from an excellent coaching tree, and if he can retain some of our current staff I don’t see the program collapsing. I think he’s higher floor that someone like Cooley.
If Howard comes, keeping Yaklich gives us a real chance....without him and its such a huge risk.
Let's hope that Howard would be good with keeping Yaklich around. Some guys might want to hire their own staff.
Feeling better and better about Howard, as long as we get this done quickly and keep Yak around. And frankly, I see him as a fairly high floor candidate- he should recruit well, comes from an excellent coaching tree, and if he can retain some of our current staff I don’t see the program collapsing. I think he’s higher floor that someone like Cooley.
Does Chris Mullin even count as a failure? Looking at his record I see a positive trajectory in his four years there.
It sounds like he left because his brother died; I agree at the rate he was going he'd probably turn out a good team most years.
Neither does Ewing, whose Hoyas finished ahead of St John in Big East, and both finished ahead of Ed Cooley's Friars. To those saying Juwan is Ewing 2.0, well, the verdict on Ewing has not been out yet.
Isaiah Thomas had a brief and hilarious tenure at FIU and given all his other issues should be held in a separate category of total galoot.
"Galoot" is my Mgoblog word of the day
Can confirm being hugged by my little sister and being called ‘you big galoot’. For the record, my little sister did not go to MSU.
Is Howard going to be anywhere near as good as Beilein? That's the question. Can he consistently beat Izzo and with the Big 10?
Maybe. But honestly that's, unfortunately, not the question. The question is whether he's better than Frank Martin or Ed Cooley, or Yak. A 1 in 2 chance of winning one of the B1G titles and a 1 in 4 chance of going to the Final Four any given year is not in the set of options anymore.
At this point I've got Yak 1. He's going to be a star IMO. After that I'll trust Warde.
We're probably not going to get a better in game coach than John Beilein, we are definitely not getting a better developer.
But Juwan has the potential to blow the top off Beilein's recruiting. I say fuck it, I'm here for the ride and if it doesn't work out hopefully we have some great talent for the next coach.
And he learned under Spolestra who people tell me is an X's and O's genius, so maybe he'll be good at that too. I'd rather have that than, say, Shaka, who can recruit with the unlimited bag of UT and also not coach at all. It's a hire that could (just maybe) end up with a program just as good as Beilein's and the downside risk is there but doesn't seem significantly higher than the other choices.
I say under Juwan, our big men will be better developed than under Beilein.
He might be able to take a recruiting to a higher level, what with the Fab-5 and NBA experience. That would go a long way to competing at a high level.
Obviously, we're going to miss Beilein and are not going to replace him with someone of his unique excellence. But if we get someone of an equally high character and other sources of excellence, that is not a bad deal. I like Howard for the upside. And remember, no one thought Beilein would have the great record he did when he was first hired.
Well, Yaklich is the closest thing to Beilein...he handpicked him, and the team took off after the hire. Makes me surprised Warde just doesnt promote Yak...but word is he wants the best minority candidate.
You realize Saddi was the Associate Head Coach under Beilein right? He was the guy who took over when Beilein wasn't able to coach.
Is Howard going to be anywhere near as good as Beilein? That's the question.
Why, is John Beilein a candidate for the job?
The objective is to hire the best available candidate.
According to a few people here, Warde's objective is to hire the best available minority candidate.
Who is saying that? You're the only one I see beating that very questionable drum
Howard is probably not going to be as good as Beilein and it's unfair to think going in that he will be. look around and tell me which of the guys that are available are anywhere near as good as Beilein.
Heck one reason that they're available at his stage of the late Spring is because they're not anywhere as good as Beilein..
Hire the best we can and deal with the crappy situation we are in.
I'm good with Howard, Yak or no... He finished his degree on the plane his first couple of years out of Michigan. He was loved here in DC with the Bullets. He's smart, thinks the game, and has some good years with great NBA coaches. He doesn't scare me at all... Keeping Yaklich would be pretty nice, though, because the college game enjoys a good defense. But I'll trust Juwann to implement whatever system he wants, and to do it well.
I also don't think he'll hesitate to bring in a college program veteran to help him navigate recruiting.
Fire the Money Cannon and get him back home!!!
One other thing about Howard... He might only be here short term, 4 or 5 years, before the NBA calls his name. That's fine, so long as he grooms a replacement better than Beilein did.
If Howard gets an NBA head coach gig after 4-5 year, it means he kept our program rolling, meaning we likely won't have a super hard time finding a replacement.
Agree on all counts. Howard is a risk but so are all the other reasonable options. Howard has way more upside.
There were only two slam dunk hires (Stevens and Donovan).
So if you're not getting one of those two, you might as well pick the guy who 1) was a star for your program, 2) has a solid X's and Os reputation from his NBA days, both as a player and assistant coach, 3) happens to be the uncle of s 5-star recruit, 4) has major credibility in a critical basketball recruiting market, and 5) is universally regarded as a nice guy and lacks any whiff of impropriety despite living the majority of his life as a highly visible public figure.
Don't overthink this, Warde. Hire Juwan.
Not overthinking it, and the safest move, by far, is promoting Yaklich... people underestimate the job he did.. think about our D the past few years... Exceptional, and the numbers prove it... he was given carte blanche, and I don't know of a situation where there is more measureable proof.
He'd likely keep our current recruits, and I highly doubt there'd be a transfer... it is very logical to promote him... Look how it worked out for sparty with Izzo. Yaklich promotion is not overthinking it.
Yak, what kind of offense will you run?
Word on the street is that you were one of the authors of the letters the Fab5 received while being a minority at Michigan. Look up Fab5 love letters from Michigan fans! You are in the minority.
I get the impression that few really accomplished college coaches—even those at schools a rung lower on the totem pole than Michigan, like Prohm—seem to have any interest in the Michigan job.
It's interesting, I found myself thinking about that too. For all the talk about what a primetime job this was going to be, it seems we've heard almost no bigtime coaches coming forward to say they were interested. I'm sure some of that is happening behind the scenes but it's been disappointing that we're going to like take a week or longer and pick a sixth/seventh best option.
If you have a job and doing well on your job, will you opened court another job that you are not sure be offered to you? The only thing you do is to "leak" your name from some reporters. I guess that we heard quite a few names already but unfortunately Prohm is not one of them. Now Juwan is the front runner horned by all the media brass, we probably will hear less names.
I’m worried Michigan has made it clear that no coach will be allowed to bag. I hope Michigan is nit so arrogant as to think it’s best to not pay kids in any way.
Any good coach will look at that returning roster and cast a very wary eye upon this job-the pathologically partisan fans be damned. The more realistic, objective assessment is that this team would have struggled to be a .500 club with Beilein returning-and I do believe this was Beilein's realization and factored into his decision to leave. With this late transition negatively impacting recruiting Michigan may well find itself behind the eight ball for more than a couple seasons. I do not have any definitive answers to the dilemma at hand but the criticisms aimed at Warde npt moving quickly enough are unjustified-given the dynamics in play here. Because, unless a coup hire is made the next 5 years could be pretty humbling.
This thing can be hedged in any direction one wishes to go. My life experience informs me that, here, the coach is in fact the biggest difference-maker. Despite having said there is significant down-side to this roster, there is, also, plenty of talent. The key is finding the coach who will correctly assess the individual skills and put the best combo of talent on the floor...and catalyze it. This is easier said than done...but I have been on the receiving end of such an event-and it is magical. This hire seems to be headed in the direction of "It's better to be lucky than good"...I would be pleased if it plays out to be both lucky and good.
That's true but 2 things. For one, it's already late to be doing this. The coaching carousel stopped. Surely some guys who would have been interested before aren't now. Second, UCLA had the same problem.
Fair but UCLA hasn’t been UCLA for the last 5 years or so (minus the one season with Ball). I get what you’re saying though. And the timing, I completely agree with. Say what you will about Beilein, he did a school and team he loves zero favors with the timing.
Fuck that. Michigan is one of 15 or so college programs that can offer a proven D1 college head coach with sustained success around $4 million a year and has a passionate fan base.
Forgo those advantages to hire a first time coach with no experience in the college game.
Ridiculous post from Brian.
So you want to hire Jamie Dixon? ?
Yup. I would also hire Dan Muller, Porter Moser, and about 30 other coaches who would take the job, know the college game, and have their recruiting footprints established over a guy who played college basketball over 20 years ago.
Porter Moser?? -- get fucking serious pal.
Lol. Porter Moser.
Porter Moser has his recruiting footprint established? Who has he recruited?
I think your confusing Michigan football with Michigan basketball, like it or not they are not the same.
It's a great job but cant pull anyone we want like football can, and there is no Jim Harbough equivalent out there to hire.
I think you're confusing your and you're.
"... a proven D1 college head coach with sustained success ..."
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. That's the problem here, Davenport. No one matching that spec is in play at the moment.
I'm down with Howard if those are the only choices. My worry is that if he is good he will be gone after 1 year and we are doing this again. For that reason I'm sort of leaning to Shaka, but looking at his former assistants it's not hard to see why he might not be in consideration.
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