He’s running an NBA style program now. His players love him. I think he’d make an excellent NBA coach.
2023-2024 General NBA Season Thread
- Thread starter BigSoxFan
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UConn is a great place to be, especially if you're a successful basketball coach. Definitely not worth leaving if the alternative is Kentucky (for a long, long time now, UConn has been far superior to Kentucky). Coaching the Los Angeles Lakers is another animal altogether and RedOctober is right - it would be a no-brainer unless he simply did not want to leave Storrs under any circumstances. His wife - who Hurley has said many times over does not want to leave New England - would have to be on board though.
Any thoughts as to what this could mean for Lebron? Early word at least was that Redick was his pick. Is there a chance he leaves LA now when he becomes a free agent?
He tweeted this after Huley's interview wik Redick.
View: https://twitter.com/KingJames/status/1781387697443004647
Sorry, pre-coffee just saw his response now.
Wondering if Redick takes an assistant position with him.
Wondering if Redick takes an assistant position with him.
The Calipari news broke the eve of the championship game and now this on the morning of game 1.
She didn't want to leave New Jersey; New England was the compromise. But maybe LA and the Lakers are the exception to all that.
I really doubt he's against it if this is how the Lakers are going. They are not that dysfunctional, unfortunately.
Really interesting development. He's obviously had success, but when was the last time a college coach came over to the NBA and had similar success? Brad was very good, and is a ninja in the front office. Donovan has been OK. The NIL aspect probably shrinks the difference a little, but it's still a transition dealing with kids to dealing with vets, the long season, etc.
If you told me 15 years ago that I would actively enjoy what JJ Redick has to say about anything, I would not have believed you. If you doubled down and told me that Redick was having a conversation with LeBron that I would be interested in, I would have thought you were a lunatic. But, it's 2024 and here we are.
LeBron needs to get the media jobs that espn is setting up for Draymond and Beverley.. get those idiots out of the booth and have people actually talk about the game in an intelligent way.
I agree!
JJ by far the best in game analyst as he’s the first in many years in any sport that doesn’t run his mouth continually. Plus I thought cuz of my perceived idea about him that he’d be arrogant and come to find out he’s the opposite. Confident but humble.
That's pretty surprising the "JJ Reddick building a staff' rumors last week, then Shams this week, were wrong.
Did the Lakers / Lebron have a last minute change of heart?
Did the Lakers / Lebron have a last minute change of heart?
Another fun element to this is that Shams is a Klutch Sports guy and Woj has known the Hurley family since writing a book about Bob Hurley and St. Anthony HS years ago. So Shams was likely carrying Lakers/LBJ water with his reporting while Woj's scoop likely came from the Hurleys.
Very curious to hear what happened. My guess is that the JJ reporting was premature and that the Lakers' brass very quietly met with Hurley to gauge his interest because neither side wanted to create issues with UConn or Redick via a publicized wooing.
Very curious to hear what happened. My guess is that the JJ reporting was premature and that the Lakers' brass very quietly met with Hurley to gauge his interest because neither side wanted to create issues with UConn or Redick via a publicized wooing.
according to Woj he's been their #1 target for a while now. So...Redick as a smokescreen?
Have to wonder if Redick would agree to be an assistant coach for him. If he's a hot name now, but not able to close the deal, after a year or two as an assistant I'd guess he'd have a job of his choosing.
Its impossible to know what is going on but the way this transpired feels like there could have been competing agendas. At least I am hoping for that. Lakers dysfunction is the best dysfunction ever so I want to believe.
JJ is also (IMO) trying to do something few other analysts do and that's educate people about basketball. Instead of just reinforcing narratives that the majority of color commentators do. (I think Scal does this too when tries to point out actions and defensive sets).
Watching LBJ with JJ makes me wonder if LBJ wants to coach when he gets done.
I think this would be the best route for JJ.
Head coach of the Lakers as a first time coaching gig is incredibly tough
Unless JJ is just desperate to coach in any fashion, I don't see why he would leave his podcast/broadcasting job to be Hurley's assistant.
Seems like he's been getting traction as a potential head coach already and will get a head coaching job in the next year or two anyway. Might be a blessing in disguise for him honestly.
Would be funny if his podcast with Hurley and Lebron's Hurley approval somehow made the Lakers more comfortable doing this. Seems like an awkward fit to me, but who knows.
It's definitely possible this is just a way for Hurley to tighten the screws on UConn and max out his compensation there.
Seems like he's been getting traction as a potential head coach already and will get a head coaching job in the next year or two anyway. Might be a blessing in disguise for him honestly.
Would be funny if his podcast with Hurley and Lebron's Hurley approval somehow made the Lakers more comfortable doing this. Seems like an awkward fit to me, but who knows.
It's definitely possible this is just a way for Hurley to tighten the screws on UConn and max out his compensation there.
Yeah I think this is banned by the CBA, Larry Coon’s CBA FAQ says that player-coaches are not allowed under the current structure:
http://www.cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm#Q29
The only difference I see is the sheer magnitude of the dollars: the highest paid college and NBA coaches were not worlds apart years ago in real dollars (maybe relatively speaking), and the mentioned coaches basically used the NBA gigs to get their pay bumped up at their colleges. The Lakers could triple his UConn contract and he'd still fall well short of the highest contract in the NBA (Erik Spoelstra). UConn does not have the deep pockets of the blue blood football schools who are fine taking a larger loss on their basketball programs, but maybe they can somehow get to a number that would keep him around. Based on his wife's previous statements and his general family attitudes the delta would have to be quite large for Dan to uproot his lifestyle. So maybe an increase from $32 mil to around $50 mil?
The other difference is that those two guys had been at their schools for ~25 years, while Hurley has only been at UConn for six.
View: https://twitter.com/John_Fanta/status/1798743846098214921
Dan Hurley met with his players at UConn this morning and informed them he's been in talks with the Lakers, a source tells Fox Sports. Hurley didn't want to hide the fact that this is real. Huskies have a noon practice and Hurley told his players it's business as usual for now.
Dan Hurley met with his players at UConn this morning and informed them he's been in talks with the Lakers, a source tells Fox Sports. Hurley didn't want to hide the fact that this is real. Huskies have a noon practice and Hurley told his players it's business as usual for now.
We always say this, and then some star demands a trade there and they get the inevitable bailout. They bungled three #2 picks in a row and still managed to get a championship right after it.
But yes, if I'm Hurley I don't want my entry into the NBA to be tied to Rui Hachimura and Austin Reaves.
Being a player-coach carries so many more responsibilities than it did 40 years ago. Interviews, pre-game media, post-game media to start. When it comes to the game how can LeBron communicate with his staff to make immediate decisions when he’s running up and down the floor? Replay reviews, substitution patterns, switching defenses every other time down the floor. I think it’s pretty same to say that we will never see another official player-coach in the NBA, or any professional league for that matter, again.
Beyond the responsibilities, I'd be very curious to see how a team would be allowed to compensate a player coach. Could they give Lebron a max extension as a player, then turn around and give him another $50M (not subject to luxury tax rules) for his coaching duties?
I highly doubt JJ will take an assistant gig.
And Anthony Davis and whatever next star wants to play in LA.
This popped up in some news aggregator I subscribe to as well, but it seemed written by bad AI. There's just no way in hell this is factoring into their decision. Long term player development, including Bronny and every other draft pick, sure, I guess.
Hurley kind of strikes me as a Harbaugh type. Runs a little too intense to be sustainable, but could get you where you want to go quickly. This would also run counter to any player development plan. I would also find it very unsurprising if this whole thing falls apart and he stays at UCONN.
I don't know what terms are being discussed but I would guess he's looking for like eight-plus years. Maybe he can pull a Brad Stevens at some point,
Imagine Hurley in 8th gear on the sidelines for 80 games per year instead of 30? He’d induce 2-3 heart attacks a game by the viewers. For them that remember (and disliked) Pitino micro-managing on the sidelines as Celtics coach, IMO Hurley is in the next gear.
The only way he takes this job is if he’s looking for a way out of UConn and the NIL/Portal world. Well, that and 10 million a year.
Yeah. Promise Hurley power, then force Bronny on him. If Lebron wanted Hurley to develop Bronny the kid should have gone to UConn.
If I'm Hurley, while the NIL/transfer portal world sucks, try to imagine coaching a group of guys when quite a few of them are making much more $$ than you. Think AD and LeBron are really going to defer to you as the coach if they don't like what's going on? How easy will it be to get buy in from guys making $20 million rather than some college freshman?
The NBA is a wildly different animal. There's lots of reasons why many (most?) successful college coaches struggle at the NBA level.
The NBA is a wildly different animal. There's lots of reasons why many (most?) successful college coaches struggle at the NBA level.
Woj says Hurley is staying at UConn despite being offered 6/$70m.
https://www.threads.net/@wojespn/post/C8CzswluLk7/?xmt=AQGzTcIVh1fPRQM7EVbAfowQgw2AbRP4Ke9hZzDTl0c9sg
https://www.threads.net/@wojespn/post/C8CzswluLk7/?xmt=AQGzTcIVh1fPRQM7EVbAfowQgw2AbRP4Ke9hZzDTl0c9sg
Can't even win the headline wars during the finals. What a desperate, pathetic organization. Sad.
Dude this is mana from the heavens for people desperately trying to avoid talking about Luka's D and his falling apart in the 4th.
Hurley played this perfectly. Get an NBA offer from the Lakers while negotiating with UConn. I can’t wait for that reporter to ask Hurley if he plans to give any of his money back to UConn.
As odd as it sounds, $70 million really is a cheap offer when Hurley's family is decidedly happy at his current position and he is likely to get UConn close to a wash with a raise when factoring in cost-of-living and taxes. The Lakers had to hit 9 digits for it to be an offer Dan couldn't refuse. But to be fair, a uniquely late-career LeBron problem that the Lakers are hedging is they are trying to find a coach both for the win-now period as well as the upcoming desert during the rebuilding period once LeBron retires. Putting out a boatload of cash for a coach who may be leading a doormat as soon as 2-3 years from now does not seem like a great investment.
I was expecting something like 8/120. Six seems too short and wtf do they care about the dollars?