Mavericks' plan to find their next coach isn't the one many fans hoped for

ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Brian Windhorst revealed there's a feeling that the Dallas Mavericks will hire an NBA assistant coach to replace Jason Kidd and become their next head coach. This is not what many Mavericks fans hoped for, as both Jon Scheyer and Dusty May became popular options among MFFLs after Dallas registered interest in these college coaches earlier this month.

"In the wake of Dallas moving on from Jason Kidd, there have been rumblings of both Duke's Jon Scheyer and Michigan's Dusty May being linked to the vacancy," Bontemps and Windhorst said. "But ever since Masai Ujiri was hired to run basketball operations last month, the belief around the league is that the most likely outcome for Dallas is elevating one of the NBA's rising assistants."

Mavericks are looking to hire from inside the NBA rather than college

Masai Ujiri has hired a former assistant coach as his head coach multiple times throughout his NBA career, and there's growing buzz that this is what he'll do again this time around as well. The Mavericks tried to interview Sean Sweeney before he accepted the head coach position with the Orlando Magic, and fans can expect that they'll be looking at other rising assistant coaches across the league to become their next head coach.

While hiring an emerging assistant coach is a strong option for Dallas as they continue to build around Cooper Flagg, the excitement surrounding a potential hire from the NCAA level is impossible to ignore as well. Scheyer, Flagg's former head coach from Duke, would've been an excellent option for them.

He already knows how to build an elite offense around Flagg, and the teenage superstar already knows him well. Flagg has been through enough change in his first year in the NBA, including four general managers (Nico Harrison, Matt Riccardi and Michael Finley as interim co-GMs, and now Mike Schmitz), and now, Dallas is searching for a new coach. This can't be easy for a player who's just getting his feet wet in professional basketball.

Scheyer would've been a familiar face who has already proven that he can bring the most out of Flagg, and coaching an NBA team seemed like a reasonable next step for the 38-year-old coach.

May was also an exciting potential option for the Mavs. He just led the Michigan Wolverines to their first National Championship since the 1980s, and he is exceptional at developing his players.

This type of coach makes perfect sense for a team looking to build around a 19-year-old franchise cornerstone, but it sounds like Dallas will look in a different direction.

The assistant coach route is promising

While one of these college coaches would be a blockbuster hire that the NBA world would be buzzing about, snagging one of these hot assistant coaches wouldn't be a bad plan, either. Greg Popovich, Erik Spoelstra, Tyronn Lue, Nick Nurse, and Joe Mazzulla are just a few of the head coaches who won an NBA title after formerly serving as an assistant, and the Mavericks can only hope that they hit a home run like this.

Dallas fans shouldn't be too upset that it seems unlikely that they'll make a splashy hire from the collegiate level, as there are plenty of great options in the NBA as well. Someone like Micah Nori, Royal Ivey, or Tony Dobbins would be a great hire for the Mavs, and even though they may not hire one of the college titans, their next great head coach could still come from an NBA bench.

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