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The Los Angeles Lakers have seemingly decided on who they want to be their next head coach as reports indicate the iconic NBA franchise is targeting back-to-back national championship-winning UConn head coach Dan Hurley.
As reported by Adrian Wojnarowski, the Lakers — who have been linked with J.J. Reddick in recent days — “are targeting Connecticut’s Dan Hurley to become the franchise’s next coach and are preparing a massive, long-term contract offer to bring the back-to-back national champion to the NBA.”
Conversations between the two sides are expected to “escalate” in the coming days. Hurley — who has been at the “forefront of the Lakers’ search since the beginning of their hiring process — has been the head coach at UConn since 2018.
“Lakers vice president of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka and governor Jeanie Buss are eager to formally discuss with Hurley their vision of marrying his dominant program — built upon both his tactical acumen and elite player development — with the storied Lakers brand, sources said.”
“Hurley, 51, has often described his ambition to one day coach in the NBA and has expressed to the Lakers a desire to explore the full picture of a partnership with one of basketball’s winningest franchises, sources said.” [via ESPN]
While the 51-year-old Jersey City native has had massive success with the University of Connecticut Huskies in recent years, he’s never coached in the NBA as his previous jobs include being the head coach at St. Benedict’s Prep, Wagner, and Rhode Island.
Hurley’s accomplishment of winning back-to-back national titles had only been achieved in college basketball seven times before: Oklahoma A&M College in 1945-46, Kentucky in 1948-49, San Francisco in 1955-56, Cincinnati in 1961-62, UCLA in 1964-64 and 67-73, Duke in 1991-92, and Florida in 2006-07.
Hurley is the son of Hall of Fame St. Anthony High School coach Bob Hurley and the brother of Arizona State University head coach Bobby Hurley. He also never played in the NBA but did spend five seasons at Seton Hall, with three of them being under former NBA head coach P. J. Carlesimo.
The Lakers are coming off a 2023-24 season that saw them finish 7th in the Western Conference with a record of 47-35. They were then knocked out of the playoffs by the Denver Nuggets in the first round.