NCAA Basketball: Los Angeles Lakers target Dan Hurley as their next head coach

A bombshell just dropped as Dan Hurley is being targeted by the Los Angeles Lakers to be their next head coach. The reigning back-to-back National Champion was assumed to be returning to UConn, but the Lakers came calling, and now Hurley may be making the jump from college to the pros. 

According to Adrian Wojnarowski, talks about a contract will ramp up in the coming days, and the even bigger news was that Hurley had been their top target from the beginning. The contract would be hefty, and if you are going to leave a program like UConn, the legendary Lakers with Lebron James is a situation where it would be hard not to leave. 

Hurley had not been in the mix for any other college head coaching positions, and NBA rumors were not even in the picture until today. JJ Redick was the original frontrunner for the Lakers job, but it appears that may just be out the window. 

This is very much outside the box, and has become the news of the day despite the fact that the NBA Finals begin today. Will the deal actually get done? That is yet to be seen, but this is a very enticing offer for a coach like Hurley. 

For UConn fans, they may just be headed towards a head coaching search in an offseason where that was the last thing this team expected to go through. And with a lot of the big names out of the coaching carousel, they may be down on hard times when it comes to replacing Hurley. 

This is a risk for Hurley because NBA jobs are volatile, sure a huge contract can come your way, but you can be fired just as quickly as you were hired. Hurley would be leaving the stability of the Huskies program where he could attempt a three-peat, but this Lakers opportunity will also not be around next time he wants an NBA job. But if he were to go from winning at UConn to potentially giving James another title, that would be quite the legacy.

It is also important to note that Hurley would not be a hire solely for winning with James and Anthony Davis, but going forward as a franchise for the Lakers. If his coaching style translates, he could be the coach of this team for a decade and beyond

This would not just be a shakeup for UConn and the Lakers, but the entire landscape of both college and professional basketball. The Big East would become wide open, and if this works out, college coaches may see more opportunities in the NBA. 

The UConn job opening up would be a huge change in the world of college basketball, and it will be interesting to see if they go in house when it comes to that replacement, or if there is a candidate who will leave their current job. 

If Hurley, the Seton Hall alumnus, does leave, UConn’s players will have a 30-day window to transfer, and for a team that just won it all, that is unprecedented in the current landscape. But again, this is not a done deal, at least not yet.