Twenty years ago, the best coach in all of college basketball met with the Los Angeles Lakers and made a decision that impacted two levels of basketball.
Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski's flirtation with the franchise included a staggering five-year, $40 million offer that was shaping up to be an industry paradigm shift in 2004.
Krzyzewski obviously rejected Kobe Bryant's money and proposals, returned to Duke and left there as the winningest coach in college basketball history. The court is named after him and he will always be part of the university's tradition as a transformative figure.
A generation later, UConn coach Dan Hurley faces a similar crossroads. He just won back-to-back national titles (Krzyzewski had won back-to-back titles more than a decade before he made the decision) and is the best coach in the sport.
A fascinating choice looms in an entirely different era: college immortality or the risk-reward of coaching the Lakers, which is shaping up to be equal parts sexy and volatile.
Could the talented and impulsive Hurley be reconfigured for the completely different temperament needed in the NBA? And is the college game as stable as the one Krzyzewski returned to 20 years ago?
With ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reporting that Hurley is the target of the Lakers' coaching search, a decision with generational impact once again looms over two sports. Will the best coach in college basketball leave for the NBA's most iconic coaching position?
Will Hurley, 51, leave UConn in the middle of his prime and give up the chance to chase John Wooden as the next winner of the third NCAA tournament?
Will Hurley take over the Lakers as they recalibrate in the twilight of LeBron James' career and try to skip the rebuild that could accompany his departure?
Will Hurley look at the uncertain and disorganized moment of college basketball's nascent foray into professional basketball and decide that real professional basketball makes more sense?
It is impossible to overstate what is at stake here. Hurley's decision links the best college basketball program of the last quarter century (UConn has won six national titles since 1999) with the future of the NBA's most splashy brand.
What makes Hurley's decision so compelling is that it is not an easy decision, as both sides have different obstacles and benefits.
If Hurley stays, he could go on and challenge Krzyzewski as the best modern coach in college basketball. Kansas' Bill Self (61) and St. John's Rick Pitino (71) are the only other current college coaches with multiple titles.
Planning for the next 20 years in college, of course, does not imply any certainty considering how many seismic changes we have seen in the last five. Basically, Hurley would need to re-recruit a new roster every year, deal with the vagaries of revenue sharing and NIL, and hope the Big East can continue to swing with the two power conferences.
(Hurley has made no secret of his disdain for the portal, summed up in this image of the fetal position.)
Day 1 in the portal… pic.twitter.com/Yv9u3CxjSI
-Dan Hurley (@dhurley15) April 12, 2024
UConn doesn't have the ability to pay like the Lakers do, but they will be as committed as possible. The university's identity is tied to high-level basketball, but at some point over the next decade, with the Big East's television contract inevitably overshadowed by the SEC and Big Ten, could that become more difficult to achieve?
No one can predict with certainty what college sports will look like 10 years from now, other than to project that SEC and Big Ten football dollars will take those two leagues into a different financial stratosphere. No one is sure how that gets to the hoops.
And if there is some sort of breakup of top-level football in the future, that's another set of headaches. The ones who helped Jay Wright, Roy Williams and Coach K opt for retirement instead of collective migraines.
But Hurley's significant interest in the job indicates what's obvious to anyone who knows him: He has the DNA of a Jersey street fighter. Sometimes that advantage is his greatest strength, but in the NBA he could be seen as the biggest risk to undermining his tenure. The theater would be fascinating.
That street fighter will want him to face the challenge of going to the NBA, training the best modern player in the world and slaying the beast that is the Lakers' job.
But that decision carries the clear risk of failure and the demand that Hurley evolve immediately and significantly.
Hurley's players will tell you (and we've had back-to-back sets of Final Four testimonials) that he brings the innate ability to be so relentlessly focused on winning and developing his players that it can be all-consuming. Of course, they balance that out by saying that he loves them off the court. And no one, obviously, is going to argue with the recent results.
But can Hurley channel that blistering approach into the temperament of an NBA player? Could he perform in all 82 games of an NBA season? Coaches are not the stars of the NBA like they are in college. Can Hurley adapt to the whims of his players?
Hurley has a successful path to follow from college to NBA coaches like Billy Donovan, Brad Stevens and Quin Snyder. They turned to organizations that embraced the idea of running an NBA franchise like a college program, based largely on player development and connection. The player development pedigree is there and the tactical genius is at the top of college basketball right now.
Hurley gave one of the all-time self-examinations during March when he summed up becoming one of the faces of college basketball this way: “I'm basically a high school coach, that's like dressing up at this college level. I don't do it.” I really care what people think of my intensity, obviously it shows in the right way with my team. We don't cheat, we don't lie. I think we do everything right. “I'm an idiot.”
With a father, Bob, who is in the Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach and a brother, Bobby, who was a first-round pick in the NBA draft, Hurley's psychology has always been fascinating. The burning flame is hereditary and unbreakable.
But there are two things about Hurley's self-rated character trait that would unequivocally need to change, or his tenure would quickly become a repeat of the long line of failures from college to the NBA.
The first is that Hurley would have to completely alter his behavior on the sideline and his treatment of referees, as that act is completely unsustainable over the course of an NBA season.
That same intensity — “I'm an obsessed coach,” Hurley said in March — that has been the north star of a rise in his high school coaching career has resulted in ugly and uncomfortable interactions with officials. (Since Hurley came to UConn in 2018-19, the school ranks third in Division I with 25 technical fouls, according to ESPN Stats & Information.)
The other is that he would have to (and it's strange to have to say this out loud) stop interacting and confronting fans. The site of Hurley yelling at Creighton and Providence fans after the game in the final months of the season (it's all on YouTube) would go from national eye-rolling.
If those same interactions happen after overtime in Sacramento, it would be a viral monster and the biggest story in sports the next day. Not just a shrug about “Danny being Danny.”
Ultimately, the choice comes down to this: stay in a place where you are appreciated, your antics are ignored, and your legacy can resonate for generations.
Or you can go to the Lakers, where winning major pop culture crossovers allows you to tango with Hollywood and compete at the highest level in a more stable league.
Any risk is mitigated, of course, by the fact that some SEC or Big Ten school would accept his failure for $10 million a year in 2026. And he could continue his cheerfully obsessive ways, winning games and reliving his way to the Hall of Fame. All while expressing the same level of histrionics towards officials.
Two decades after Krzyzewski chose Duke, another election looms that will impact two-billion-dollar industries.
Alert the paparazzi: Hurley's watch is on.
