Too good to be true? The Lakers’ offer may have been just that. But there’s another side to this story.
Here’s a rule of thumb to apply in life: If it’s too good to be true, don’t believe it. That was my thinking last week when ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski tweeted that Connecticut head coach Dan Hurley was in talks with the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers about their head coaching vacancy.
It never made sense to me. No way would Hurley give up such a great situation at UConn to coach the Lakers, no matter what the money was. Furthermore, I wonder how serious the Lakers were about him in the first place. They offered Hurley six years, $70 million less than Monty Williams pocketed for the Pistons’ gig — a six-year, $78.5 million offer. The Lakers had to know Hurley would reject it.
It’s not surprising Hurley stayed at UConn rather than advance his career by coaching in the NBA. It’s doubtful he’d take the Lakers job even if it guaranteed he’d be the highest-paid coach in the NBA. Hurley is a college coach, which is too intense for the NBA. Grown men don’t want to be told what to do by a head coach time after time, and they certainly don’t want to be yelled at on television.
That is why it never made sense for him to leave. He’d be miserable quickly, especially since he’s piling up losses.
Dan Hurley (photo courtesy The Spun)
Hurley wants to be the man. NBA head coaches aren’t like that, as Rick Pitino, Lon Kruger, Mike Montgomery, Tim Floyd, John Calipari, and John Beilein (among others) learned the hard way. Hurley knew he’d be out of place. Plus, Hurley is a West Coast guy. He has lived on the East Coast, born and raised there. It would be a tough adjustment for him to go to the West Coast and coach a team where fans expect championships immediately.
Coaching an old Lakers team would be a career suicide for him. I don’t think he’d be any better than the coaches who have come and gone with the Lakers over the years. The glory days of that franchise have come and gone. The front office has no clue what to do, and Jeanie Buis isn’t her father.
I find it interesting that Wojnarowski would tweet about Hurley’s interest in coaching the Lakers. That report came days after Geno Auriemma signed a five-year extension worth $18.7 million to coach UConn’s women’s basketball. There’s no doubt (as I see it) that Hurley wanted to use the Lakers as leverage to get more money from Connecticut after his colleague got paid.
Remember, Wojnarowski has known the Hurley family for a long time. This NBA insider once wrote the book The Miracle of St. Anthony, featuring Bob Hurley, the UConn coach’s father, who coached at St. Anthony’s in Jersey City for years. It could have been that the younger Hurley wanted Wojnarowski to express interest in the Lakers to get UConn’s attention.
In the end, Dan Hurley did the right thing. College is the right place for him at the right time. He can win more national championships at UConn and become a legendary head coach like John Wooden and others. His family loves it out on the East Coast, and staying is the only choice that makes sense. Besides, per his dad’s critique–and despite winning two national championships–son Dan is still a work in progress as a head coach.
The NBA could be intriguing for Hurley down the road, and don’t count out the Knicks. Yes, I could see him in Boston, too, but the way things are going with 35-year-old coach Joe Mazzulla, it could be a long wait, especially given that Dan Hurley is 51. On the flip side, I don’t see Hurley in either Philadelphia or Washington.
But the larger question is whether we’ll ever see Dan Hurley in the pros. If I were a betting man, I’d wager against it. The big reason is that, first and foremost, Hurley is a teacher–an educator. (And guess what?) That is what college is for.
