Last summer, the Los Angeles Lakers publicly courted UConn coach Dan Hurley for the team’s head coaching position. While Hurley considered the offer, he ultimately chose to remain at UConn and the Lakers would eventually hire JJ Redick, which has worked out very well.
The Lakers’ pursuit of Hurley came out of nowhere, but it made sense as he was coming off back-to-back National Championships and the Lakers wanted to make a splash. And for Hurley, his interest in the Lakers job actually went back a year prior to his first conversation with general manager Rob Pelinka, via The Zach Lowe Show:
“I go back to almost a year prior to having my first conversation with Rob Pelinka about the Lakers job. I talked to him like a year earlier about Jordan Hawkins and Andre Jackson, two guys on our ’23 championship team. And I talked to Rob on the phone for probably 15 or 20 minutes about those two guys and I remember after hanging up with Rob and saying ‘Wow I was really impressed by Pelinka with the Lakers, like he was pretty detailed with the way he spoke about my guys.’ So then when that Lakers thing came up a year later, like I had this baseline of respect for Rob and that’s what got me excited about the possibility. For me, I’ve gotta network any big decision that I’ve gotta make. Or during the course of the season, I’m smart enough to stay connected with the people that I like to take advice from when I gotta make big decisions, when I’ve got to make big decisions whether they’re people in coaching or people in the media like [Adrian Wojnarowski] who, anytime I’ve gotta make a big decision in my life career-wise, Woj is one of the people, one of the first calls I’ll make.”
Now a year later, some are questioning whether Hurley made the right call as UConn struggled to a disappointing season while the Lakers acquired superstar guard Luka Doncic. And Hurley revealed that he has gotten many messages from Lakers fans since that day calling him out for not taking the job:
“Yea I got some of those. But I’d say a lot of, a majority of it is, it’s Lakers fans direct messaging you that you’re the biggest moron. Look how stupid you are.”
In fairness to Hurley, no one could have predicted that the Lakers would somehow acquire one of the best players in the league in his prime. The Doncic trade is an unprecedented one in sports as long as you live outside of Dallas. Surely Hurley has had some thoughts about what could have been, but he is undoubtedly more focused on turning things around in Storrs, while the Lakers and Redick are looking to bring another championship to Los Angeles.
Luka Doncic reveals first moment he felt like a Laker
It has been discussed plenty of times how difficult it was for Luka Doncic upon initially being traded to the Lakers, but the superstar recently revealed the first moment he truly felt like a member of the franchise was the first game he suited up.
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