The Los Angeles Lakers and their fans were thoroughly disappointed when Dan Hurley turned down the team’s offer to become its head coach and instead decided to remain at the University of Connecticut. The Lakers reportedly offered him $70 million over six years to coach and be something of a program-builder, and according to one reporter, his rejection didn’t really have to do with the money he was offered.
Now the Lakers are back to square one. Before they sought out Hurley, broadcaster and podcaster JJ Redick was their leading candidate and perhaps on his way to winning the job.
The news that Los Angeles was aggressively courting Hurley was broken by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, who is originally from Connecticut. Some have accused Wojnarowski of helping Hurley “use” the Lakers as leverage to simply get a better offer from the Huskies to remain with them.
Shams Charania is the NBA’s other reporter who routinely gets seemingly exclusive scoops and breaks big new stories. While on “Run it Back,” he shot down Wojnarowski’s claim that Hurley was the Lakers’ top coaching candidate.
“[Dan Hurley] was not the #1 candidate to go and pursue from the start… At the end of the day – he chose to stay for $20M less at UConn”@ShamsCharania on the #Lakers head coaching search 👀 pic.twitter.com/WLYBVVQi6u
— Run It Back (@RunItBackFDTV) June 11, 2024
“My sources have said that JJ Redick has been the frontrunner for this job. James Borrego has also been among the leaders for this job as well with JJ Redick. But when you think about the process so far, Rob Pelinka has met, before this Dan Hurley situation, he had met twice with two candidates. He met with JJ Redick once, he met with James Borrego a separate time solo and then James Borrego came into the facility, met with everyone, met with ownership, and then they last week on Wednesday turned their attention to Dan Hurley.
“He was not the No. 1 candidate, the No. 1 guy to go pursue from the start, from the beginning, but they felt like there was an opening there for him. He was in contract negotiations with UConn, he was discussing a deal to go back and they felt like there was an opening and they threw what people around the league believe was a hail mary offer at him. Six years, $70 million and at the end of the day Dan Hurley chose not to leave, he chose to stay for $20 million less at UConn. They did go up significantly from his current deal right now, but it is $20 million less.
“And you think about the Lakers job and what it’s known for and the big time-ness of it and he still decided to stay at UConn, go for a chance at a three-peat. It does beg the question around the league, was there genuine interest, was this a genuine process with this or was this simply just about leverage? So when you think about it, the Lakers are two and a half weeks out from the NBA Draft, they’re three weeks away from free agency, no coach yet. I think everyone around the league doesn’t really have a great feel for where this process is at.”
Whatever really happened with Hurley and the Lakers, it was a very interesting and unexpected plot twist. But that is now in the past, and they now have a limited amount of time to make sure they hire the right head coach.
