Michigan coach John Beilein thought about making a jump to the NBA last year. This time around, Beilein is actually taking the leap. Beilein, Michigan basketball’s all-time winningest coach, has agreed to become the next head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers. The news was first reported Monday by ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, who reported that Beilein, 66, agreed to a five-year deal over the weekend. A University of Michigan athletics spokesman confirmed Beilein's departure before the Cavaliers made the hiring official. "I want to thank the University of Michigan for what has been a truly special home and remarkable place for my family and I for the last 12 years," Beilein said in a statement released by the Cavaliers. "We have achieved great success together and we could not have done it without the incredible support of our administration, coaches, players, staff, students, fans and the entire university community. We shared some of the best moments of my life together and I will always be grateful for that. "At the same time, I felt very strongly about this new and exciting opportunity with the Cavaliers. I am very thankful to (owner) Dan Gilbert and (general manager) Koby Altman and honored to be the head coach of the Cavaliers. I love the position the team is in to build and grow and this was something I felt was the perfect fit for me. With hard work and dedication by all of us, we will grow this team day by day and reinforce a culture of success that sustains itself with strong core values. Cleveland is a great city with amazing fans and I am really looking forward to calling Cleveland home for years to come.” Beilein's exit brings an end to an impressive 12-year run where he guided Michigan to nine 20-plus win seasons, nine NCAA Tournament appearances, two Big Ten regular-season championships, two conference tournament titles, and two national championship game appearances. Known for his ability to develop talent, Beilein has had nine Wolverines selected in the NBA Draft since 2011 — Darius Morris, Tim Hardaway Jr., Trey Burke, Glenn Robinson III, Mitch McGary, Nik Stauskas, Caris LeVert, D.J. Wilson and Moritz Wagner — with seven being first-round picks. Beilein, who was 278-150 at Michigan, is the only coach in program history to record back-to-back seasons with at least 30 wins and holds the program mark for wins in a single season (33 in 2017-18). He also owns an 829-468 career record in his 41 seasons at the college level, which includes previous stops at Nazareth, Le Moyne, Canisius, Richmond and West Virginia. After guiding the Wolverines to the national title game in 2018, Beilein led Michigan to a 30-win season in 2018-19, and a berth in the Sweet Sixteen for the fifth time in seven years, where it fell to eventual national runner-up Texas Tech. The Wolverines appeared poised to return the majority of their top players from that team, but Ignas Brazdeikis, Charles Matthews and Jordan Poole announced shortly after the season they would test the NBA waters. Matthews and Poole since have said they will remain in the NBA Draft and won't return to Michigan, while Brazdeikis — the reigning Big Ten Freshman of the Year — hasn't announced whether he'll return. Beilein flirted with an opportunity in the NBA last summer, interviewing for the head-coaching vacancy with the Detroit Pistons, before removing his name from consideration and opting to remain in Ann Arbor. He was never offered the job. At the time, Beilein said he found the Pistons situation appealing for several reasons, including the proximity to his family and the fact NBA coaches actually have downtime in the offseason. The biggest draw, though, was the challenge and the chance to prove he can succeed at the highest level. "Tell me I can't do something and I'm about to do it," Beilein said at the time. "I had a very good college coach come up to me when I came to Michigan and say, 'Are you crazy? Why are you going to a train wreck like Michigan?’ I said, 'That's exactly why I came to Michigan.' That's what we like to do. So, those things sometimes are motivating.” Following his talks with the Pistons, Beilein and Michigan agreed to a contract extension that would have kept him in Ann Arbor through the 2022-23 season. He was set to make $3.8 million annually through the length of his deal, which ranked No. 10 nationally this past season among men's college basketball coaches. According to the contract details, if Beilein opted to leave Michigan anytime before April 15, 2023, he was required to provide "reasonable advance written notice of the termination of his employment." He won't be required to pay a buyout. Starting on April 16, the contract automatically extended for an additional year, as it would each subsequent year April 16, absent notice otherwise from either side, meaning Beilein was to stay on until at least April 2024. Prior to Beilein re-signing with Michigan, athletic director Warde Manuel had discussed offering Beilein a lifetime contract and had hoped Ann Arbor would be the final stop of his coaching career. "I was saddened when John told me this morning of his decision to leave Michigan for a head coaching position in the NBA," Manuel said in a statement. "However, I am incredibly thankful for his 12 years of service to this university. Above and beyond being our all-time winningest coach, John is a tremendous role model for the game of college basketball. "He is an outstanding educator, community member and a man of great integrity, and he and (wife) Kathleen will be missed. My priority now is to commence a full national search for our next basketball coach." Beilein replaces Larry Drew, who finished last season as the head coach after Tyronn Lue was fired six games into the campaign, and will take over a Cavaliers team that went 19-63 following the free-agency departure of star LeBron James last offseason. The Cavs are owned by Gilbert, a billionaire entrepreneur and Quicken Loans Inc. chairman, and Altman's assistant GM, Mike Gansey, played two seasons under Beilein at West Virginia. Beilein is expected to be formally introduced as the Cavs' head coach sometime next week. “We could not be more thrilled to name John Beilein as the new coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers,” Gilbert said in a statement. “First, John is a great human being. He cares deeply about his players and others who work for him and around him. He defines the words class, integrity and character. "He is a tireless worker who obsesses about finding better ways and the inches that will help his team and the organization grow. John is a brilliant basketball mind and last but not least, John Beilein is a winner." Detroit News staff writer James David Dickson contributed. jhawkins@detroitnews.com Twitter: @jamesbhawkins<doc-sep>In 1975, John Beilein became the head coach of the junior varsity boys basketball team at Newfane (New York) High School, a small team in a small town about 30 miles east of Niagara Falls, which is to say … the middle of nowhere. He was 22 years old. He was the eighth child of nine to a Western New York millworker and apple farmer. He was a graduate of Wheeling (West Virginia) Jesuit. Not a ton was expected. Why would it be? Yet over the ensuing 44 years, Beilein would prove better at developing talent, meshing a team and drawing up game plans than nearly anyone in the game of basketball. He’d go on to be the head coach at Erie Community College, then NCAA Division-III Nazareth College, then D-II Le Moyne, then D-I Canisius — all in New York — followed by Richmond, West Virginia and Michigan, where he’d lead the Wolverines to two national title games. On Monday, at 66 years old, he became a first-time head coach in the NBA, hired with a five-year contract by the Cleveland Cavaliers, ending a résumé ascent that boggles the mind — never once an assistant, never once fired, a picture of meritocracy at work. At 66, John Beilein is finally making the move to the NBA. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images) The move is fascinating on numerous levels and from both sides. First, the timing. The Cavs have spent a month trying to find a new coach for their rebuild. A slew of coaches have been mentioned, namely young, up-and-coming NBA assistants. Now, out of nowhere, a Detroit-based owner — and Michigan State alum — hires the Michigan coach in a complete shift of gears. And it went down about 36 hours before Tuesday’s NBA draft lottery, where the Cavaliers have a 14 percent chance of landing the No. 1 overall pick — in other words, Zion Williamson. If that happens, then suddenly the post-LeBron James Cavs job becomes a lot more coveted in NBA circles, and Cleveland might have attracted a more experienced coach. There’s an additional 26 percent chance Cleveland gets in the top three, where Duke’s RJ Barrett and Murray State’s Ja Morant are waiting. Story continues Get any of them, but especially Zion, and then the 19-win Cavs become an intriguing team. For Beilein, that’s a very nice situation to walk into. Of course, there is also a nearly 60 percent chance they wind up in spots 4-6, where the draft is considered a complete crapshoot. Did the Cavs jump too soon? Or did they hedge their bets. Or was it Beilein reaching/hedging? Tuesday night will tell. Then there is Cleveland going the college route, which for the most part through the years has proven to be a bad idea. College coaches have often proven to be overwhelmed and underprepared. Beilein, however, should be an exception. It’s not that he’ll immediately turn the Cavs into a winner. That’s not how coaching works in the NBA. You have to have players. In 1996-97, San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich, mostly minus an injured David Robinson, won 17 games. The Spurs drafted Tim Duncan (now retired) and haven’t missed the playoffs since. Yes, Beilein is an NCAA coach with no NBA experience, but he’s a coach’s coach. He’s not a recruiter’s coach. He didn’t keep ascending through the college ranks because he brought in an annual parade of McDonald’s All-Americans. He’s rarely had truly great recruits, even at Michigan. He built every program by developing players and out-game-planning opponents. He’s a basketball junkie who still cuts his own game film because he finds it valuable to his understanding of what needs to be done. The NBA game is different than the college one, and there will be myriad adjustments, particularly in-game. However, in terms of bringing in a coach capable of improving a young roster — notably rookie guard Collin Sexton — Beilein seems like a safe bet. His players have almost always gotten better. Even if the Cavs aren’t contenders in three or so seasons and Beilein, for the first time, gets broomed, its young core likely will be better positioned for the next coach. Cleveland isn’t looking for a coach to get it over the hump for a championship right now. It can live with Beilein learning in-game intricacies for the long-haul plan. It is similar to Boston hiring former Butler coach Brad Stevens — just decades difference in age. Which brings up a notable number: 66. A first-year NBA coach at that age? Well, if Beilein shows players he knows what he is doing, they will follow him. The idea that coaches (or bosses in any work environment) need to “relate” to their employees is foolish. Competency is always king. As for Beilein, why now? He had Michigan rolling to the point where it could contend for Big Ten and national titles each year, yet without the pressure of all or nothing. Coaching the Wolverines is an incredible and lucrative job ($3.8 million a season). Football is still most important there, and the fan base tends to just want a basketball program that is befittingly good, but mostly something to take pride in. Yes, Michigan fans want to win, but they aren’t going to melt down over a second-round loss. That’s a lot to give up, but Beilein has long wanted to test himself at the highest level. He never won an NCAA title, but coming close twice leaves him with little else to prove. In a one-and-done tournament, the best team doesn’t always win. He also gets to walk away from the stress of recruiting, which no coach who made the jump to the pros has ever missed. He’s been involved in NBA discussions before, most notably with the Detroit Pistons just a year ago. This time he said yes. At his age, there may not have been a next time. So now he gets an NBA gig, now he might coach Zion, now he gets to see if he can conquer the final frontier before the window closes forever. Forty-four seasons ago, he blew the whistle as a JV coach and never stopped climbing. For him — and the Cavs — why not see if he can take down one last mountain. More from Yahoo Sports:<doc-sep>The Cleveland Cavaliers have a new coach in John Beilein, but why would an established college coach leave his comfy gig for this job? In Cleveland Cavaliers rumors, John Beilein is the team’s new head coach. His departure from Michigan sent shockwaves through the college game. So why did he take the gig? To start, Beilein got a five-year contract from Dan Gilbert and there’s a good bet the longtime coach has a nice golden parachute if it all doesn’t work out in Cleveland. On the basketball side of things, Beilein genuinely seems interested in the Cavs young talent, according to The Athletic’s Joe Vardon (subscription). “Sources said the youth and fluidity of the Cavs’ roster — only Sexton, Kevin Love, Osman and Larry Nance Jr. are essentially guaranteed of being on this team for the foreseeable future — intrigued Beilein.” He might even be able to add Zion Williamson to that list, but even if he doesn’t, you can’t deny Beilein’s interest. He took the job, surprisingly, the day before the Cavaliers found out the order of the 2019 NBA Draft lottery. Vardon added that Beilein really believes he has an opportunity to “mold” the Cavs, much like he did at West Virginia in the early 2000s. Current Cavs’ assistant and Olmsted Falls native Mike Gansey was on Beilien’s teams, which made an Elite Eight and Sweet 16 appearance. After Gansey graduated, WVU won the NIT. The current core of the team is centered around Collin Sexton, Cedi Osman, Larry Nance Jr. and Kevin Love. Nance is trying to add a 3-point arsenal to his game, which is extra important now because Beilein’s Michigan teams viewed the 3-pointer as a necessity. Beilein has a history of exceeding expectations and developing players at the college level, so it will be intriguing to see how he’s style translates, especially with Sexton, Osman and Nance.<doc-sep>
In perhaps the most stunning move of the young 2019 NBA coaching carousel, John Beilein has been hired as the new Cavaliers head coach. Cleveland handed the 66-year-old a five-year contract, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowksi, to leave his post at the University of Michigan, where he went 278-150 after taking over in 2007. Beilein is known as a brilliant offensive mind and his Wolverines teams excelled in recent years: Dating back to the 2012-13 campaign, they reached the Sweet 16 five times and the national championship game twice. Now Beilein will be asked to steward a Cavs rebuilding process that got off to a bumpy start following last summer’s free-agent departure of LeBron James. Cleveland fired head coach Tyronn Lue just six games into the 2018-19 season and left assistant Larry Drew in charge the rest of the way. The team finished 19-63 and enters this week as one of three franchises with a 14 percent chance of securing the no. 1 overall pick (and the right to select Zion Williamson) in June’s NBA draft. Beilein will have young talent (led by 2018 draft pick Collin Sexton) to work with, and perhaps the financial flexibility required to retool this roster effectively. The Pistons’ lack of such flexibility reportedly played a role in Beilein passing up an in-state move to Detroit in 2018. From an NBA standpoint, this makes for a fascinating experiment. Beilein becomes just the fifth coach to jump straight from college to the pros since 2010. (The others: Brad Stevens, Fred Hoiberg, Billy Donvan, and Mike Dunlap—although Dunlap had served as an assistant for the Nuggets a few years prior.) And while college coaches often garner buzz in the NBA rumor mill, Beilein was far from the most frequently floated name. Kentucky’s John Calipari, Kansas’s Bill Self, and Villanova’s Jay Wright all seemed more likely to land an NBA contract than Beilein. Even Beilein’s flirtation with the Pistons was widely perceived as a leverage play; after all, he signed a sizable contract extension with Michigan shortly thereafter last July. To that end, this is a devastating blow to the Michigan fan base. Before Beilein arrived, the Wolverines had missed the NCAA tournament in nine consecutive seasons; under his guidance, they emerged as one of the most consistent programs in the nation and experienced several iconic moments. Michigan is and will always be a football school, but over the past decade Beilein’s teams regularly outshined Jim Harbaugh’s. A cruel twist for the Ann Arbor faithful: Cavs owner Dan Gilbert is a Michigan State alum. Cleveland’s basketball fortunes have nowhere to go but up. It just brought in a coach with a history of rising up the ranks, as over the past 40-plus years Beilein has gone from Newfane High School in New York to the pros, making stops at community college and Division I and II programs along the way. The Cavs’ rebuilding efforts are now in the hands of an amateur basketball lifer. How high can Beilein take them?