Dan Hurley could be heading to the NBA.
According to ESPN, the Los Angeles Lakers are targeting Hurley as the team’s next coach. UConn has won back-to-back NCAA tournaments under Hurley over the last two seasons. The Lakers are looking for a coach to replace Darvin Ham after getting eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by the Denver Nuggets this spring.
Former Duke and NBA player J.J. Redick had been seen as the frontrunner for the Lakers job in recent days. But the Lakers are reportedly preparing to offer Hurley a “massive” contract for him to come to the NBA.
Hurley, 51, would take over a team that’s looking for one more push to the Finals with LeBron James and Anthony Davis. After winning the 2020 NBA Finals, the Lakers have lost twice in the first round of the playoffs and missed the postseason in 2022. In Ham’s first season in 2022-23, the Lakers got the No. 7 seed and advanced to the Western Conference Finals before getting swept by the Nuggets.
James, who turns 40 in December, has a player option on his contract for the 2024-25 season that needs to be picked up by June 29. On the assumption that it’s picked up — there are no signs he will not — James and Davis will make a combined $90 million next season.
There’s limited financial and roster flexibility for the Lakers beyond James and Davis too. The team does have its 2024 first-round pick at No. 17 after the Pelicans opted to gamble on the Lakers’ roster and take the team’s 2025 first-round pick earlier this summer as part of the deal for Davis. With that pick, the team’s 2029 first-round pick and other players on the roster, Los Angeles could be in the market to upgrade for a No. 3 player alongside its star duo.
However, a move for another top-tier player could significantly hurt the team’s depth and force the Lakers to rely on minimum-salary players for a large portion of the roster. Just ask the Phoenix Suns how that went this season. The Suns were bounced in the first round by the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first season with Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal all on the same team.
Hurley is 292-163 as a college coach
Hurley has won nearly 300 games across 14 seasons as a head coach at the top level of men’s college basketball. After two seasons at Wagner, Hurley took over at Rhode Island. He turned the Rams into a 23-win team in his third season after Rhode Island went 8-21 in year one.
After taking the Rams to back-to-back NCAA tournaments in 2017 and 2018, Hurley was hired at UConn. The Huskies were a mess when he was brought in. UConn had finished under .500 in each of the past two seasons and had made just one NCAA tournament appearance since winning the national title in 2014.
UConn was 16-17 in Hurley’s first season before winning 19 games in year two before the COVID-19 pandemic prematurely ended the college basketball season. Since then, UConn has made the NCAA tournament four straight times and UConn has become the prominent program in men’s college basketball.
The Huskies have obliterated their opponents in each of the past two NCAA tournaments. In 2023, UConn beat every team it played in the tournament by at least 13 points on the way to a national title win over San Diego State.
UConn was even better in 2023-24. The Huskies lost just three games all season and beat their NCAA tournament opponents by even more. UConn won each of its six tournament games by at least 14 points. The Huskies beat Alabama 86-72 in the Final Four before beating Purdue 75-60 in the national title game.
