Michigan's Juwan Howard was Los Angeles Lakers' top head-coaching candidate: 'The job was his if he wanted it'
The Los Angeles Lakers fired Frank Vogel after the 2021-22 season and have their new head coach in Darvin Ham. The move didn’t come after a lengthy process, though, which crossed paths with Michigan Wolverines basketball head coach Juwan Howard.
Immediately after Vogel was fired April 11, rumors emerged that the Lakers would pursue Howard. All was quiet for some time, before a May 22 report from ESPN insider Adrian Wojnarowski stated Howard “recently declined a Los Angeles Lakers overture on the franchise’s head coaching job.”
New details have emerged on the ‘overture,’ with NBA correspondent Marc Stein revealing Howard was the Lakers’ top candidate.
“According to the latest buzz in league coaching circles, Michigan’s Juwan Howard was the Lakers’ preferred candidate among the various coaches to whom they were linked who were under contract elsewhere and thus ultimately unavailable — ahead of Philadelphia’s Doc Rivers and Utah’s Quin Snyder,” Stein wrote in his newsletter.
“The Lakers, I’m told, made such strong overtures to Howard that the implication was clear: The job was his if he wanted it.”
Stein also revealed that Boston Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens was interested in Howard last summer. Stevens retired from coaching last year and stepped into his current front-office role, before the team tapped Ime Udoka for the job. Udoka has since led Boston to the NBA Finals.
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It’s not surprising that the interest from the Lakers side was real but not mutual. A former Miami Heat assistant and 19-year NBA player, Howard interviewed for NBA head coaching jobs prior to accepting the position at his alma mater in the spring of 2019 after John Beilein made the jump to the NBA. Many believed he was next in line for a professional head coaching job, but the opportunity at Michigan was too good for the former All-American to pass up.
Apparently, his current situation is too enjoyable to leave, too, even despite some obvious connections to the Lakers franchise. His former Michigan teammate, Rob Pelinka, is the organization’s general manager, and Howard played with star player LeBron James with the Miami Heat, winning two world titles.
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“I’m in Ann Arbor to stay, baby,” Howard said on the Jalen and Jacoby show last year. “I love Michigan; I love my job, and I’m enjoying it and this experience. I’m also looking forward to growing each and every year and developing these young men to become the best versions of themselves as student-athletes.”
Howard is entering his fourth season at Michigan and coaching two of his sons. Jace Howard will be a junior this coming year, and his youngest, Jett Howard, is a four-star 2022 signee out of Bradenton (Fla.) IMG Academy and set to make an impact for the Maize and Blue this winter.
Howard’s wife, Jenine Howard, made it clear in a tweet this spring that the Michigan coach loves mentoring every kid on the roster, not just his own sons. His goal remains to finish as the last team standing on Monday night in April.
“I also with they would stop making it about ‘his sons,’ the Michigan coach’s wife tweeted. “He is excited to coach EVERY kid here. He wants to win a championship. That’s the focus.”
Howard has posted a 61-32 record in three seasons at Michigan. He led the Maize and Blue to the 2021 Big Ten title and was named the Big Ten Coach of the Year and Associated Press National Coach of the Year. He’s won five NCAA Tournament games in two events (2020’s was canceled), three more than any other Big Ten team during that span. The 11th-seeded Wolverines made a Sweet 16 run this past March.
