HURLEY HAS NOTHING MORE TO ACHIEVE AT UCONN AND MUST TRY THE LAKERS
College basketball is going nowhere, and after two straight titles, Hurley would be paid monstrous sums to coach a revered franchise featuring the conclusion of LeBron James and offensive innovation
As a historian and a hearty humorist, Dan Hurley knows where college basketball is headed. The transfer portal and the NIL era could lead a coach to the worst swamps of Jersey, where he grew up, about 2,800 miles from where he should go next. Whatever the Los Angeles Lakers are offering — let’s assume $20 million a season, if not more — all he must do is look again at the NBA draft pool and ignore Springsteen.
Frenchmen will go first and second, a year after Victor Wembanyama ruled. Why do we laugh at CBS and Warner Bros. Discovery, which pay almost $1 billion annually for NCAA tournament rights through 2032? March Madness is nothing more than a gambler’s fancy and an uninspired dungeon for talent. So what if Hurley wins three consecutive national championships at Connecticut? It’s still a university without big-time football and lags far beyond the SEC and the Big Ten, which means he might crash beside the portal phones instead of taking photos in a fetal position.
Other than the New York Knicks, who might dump Tom Thibodeau if Hurley wanted to come home and coach Jalen Brunson, the Lakers are the place. He would take over the show-business slant in the winter and try to appease a 39-year-old man named LeBron James, who made the comment: “He's so DAMN GOOD!!! Along with his staff. Super creative with their (offense). Love it." Hurley would become the NBA’s biggest story and at least would try to bring along Bronny James, who is 19 and can’t play offense, in a developmental role. If I were James, I’d be more interested in teaming up with Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving to win banners with the Mavericks, but Hurley gives him a larger role in social media, which means too much to LBJ at his age.
Never mind that Hurley might never win a title again. He’d venture into the mighty Western Conference, where cases could be made that Dallas, Denver, Minnesota and Oklahoma City will tromp for years. But two powerhouse teams remain in the NBA — Boston and the Lakers — and he deserves one shot after a magnificent collegiate run. Already, he’s being pushed by none other than Geno Auriemma, the esteemed women’s coach at Connecticut, who told Dan Patrick that he spent Wednesday night with Hurley.
“I have no idea where this is going or what’s happening, but I just leaned over and I said, ‘I think you could win a lot of championships with the Lakers, more so than a guy who’s never coached,’ ” Auriemma said.
Hurley looked at him and nodded. “Crazy if he doesn’t take it,” said Auriemma, who was referring to JJ Redick, who suddenly is second or worst on the El Segundo list after misguided reporter Shams Charania said he was the man.
Surely, Hurley would have to dial down his antics. He was bonkers during the NCAA tournament, where comedian Larry David made fun of him during another UConn rout: “You can stop coaching, the game’s over. Stop coaching! Shame on you. Take the starters out.” Hurley was left to laugh, saying, “I’m the Larry David of college coaching with my antics and idiosyncrasies. No, ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm,’ that’s a good show.” Some of that will work with celebrities at Crypto.com Arena, but he also would coach a franchise that has won only one title since 2010 and will watch James fade away as Anthony Davis tries to stay upright. He won’t be able to say, “We suck at winning close games. So you have to go with the alternative.” Hurley will struggle to win any games for a dysfunctional, 47-35 outfit that finished seventh in the conference.
Nor can he say, “I’m basically a high school coach that's like masquerading up at this college level. I don't really care what people necessarily think of my intensity, it obviously shows up the right way with my team. We don't cheat, we don't lie. I think we're about all the right things. Just, at times, I'm an a—hole.” He can be an a—hole. But he’d better be respected by NBA veterans. Last we saw him, he was ordering fans of other teams to try and punch him out on the court. That won’t work, either.
What should be regarded seriously is that Jay Wright and Roy Williams and Mike Krzyzewski — who, 20 years ago, turned down a chance to coach the Lakers and Kobe Bryant — escaped the college game. If he begins to win with the Lakers, Hurley can trot out last season’s line about his wife, Andrea. “She’s got to get the hand washer going to get these dragon underwear clean for a quick turnaround,” he said.
Until then, he simply should take the job, bank the money and ponder Brad Stevens. Eleven years ago, he left Butler to take the coaching job with the Celtics. Today, leading the front office, he is a few wins from an NBA championship. It can be done.
At UConn, he has won back-to-back for the first time in 17 years, with a point differential of 23.3 points a game last season. He has nothing more to accomplish in Storrs. Having overcome alcoholism and depression, how about a new life challenge? “I heard the great news that (the Lakers) have had conversations with back-to-back NCAA champion and current UCONN Head Coach, Dan Hurley, about becoming the next Lakers Head Coach,” Magic Johnson wrote. “I’m so excited and thrilled! This would be a game changer for the Lakers organization, LeBron, AD, the rest of the Laker players, Laker Nation and the NBA! Coach Hurley can coach his butt off lol.”
That’s more than we can say for Redick, who never has been a head coach above the elementary school level. When LeBron and Magic say you’re damn good, isn’t it time to prove it on the real level?
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.