Let's get this out of the way: The Los Angeles Lakers are a little embarrassed.
Their crush publicly rejected them, and with that comes pain, whether you're a high school student or a multimillion-dollar international megabrand.
But the Lakers have been here before. Dan Hurley leaving his head coaching position to remain at the University of Connecticut shouldn't be a catastrophe for Jeanie Buss, Rob Pelinka & Co. It should be a reality check.
In 2019, the Lakers were rejected by both Tyronn Lue and Monty Williams, and it later became clear that both felt the Lakers had undervalued them with their contract offers.
“I just didn't think they treated me fairly,” Lue later told ESPN. “And I wasn't going to accept any offers just to get a job.”
A year after dissing the Lakers, Lue became the head coach of the LA Clippers, and two weeks ago he signed a contract extension worth about $14 million per season. Williams chose a five-year deal with the Suns over the Lakers in 2019, and now earns more than $13 million a year as coach of the Detroit Pistons.
Both numbers are higher than what the Lakers reportedly offered their first option, Hurley, this time around. League executives were evaluating the Lakers' offer to Hurley on Monday afternoon (six years and $70 million, according to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski) and debating whether it was actually a good deal or could be considered another lowball bet.
It would have been a huge salary for a first-time NBA head coach and might be impossible for Connecticut to match. But some believed that if plucking Hurley and his high-energy, culturally creative style from a gilded college situation was truly the Lakers' big move this offseason, not offering him a top-five coaching salary was, in effect, another low bet. .
There was a lot of surprise around the league when news broke last week whether the Lakers' interest was real. In the end, that ended up turning in the opposite direction. Now, the question is whether Hurley's interest was ever real, not a position the Lakers were looking to be in.
So things are bleak for the Lakers right now. But they have been bleaker… and not that long ago.
In 2019, Frank Vogel was introduced to everyone knowing he was no better than the Lakers' third option. Former team president and franchise legend Magic Johnson had recently criticized Pelinka on national television for “stabbing him in the back.” At that point, the Lakers had missed the playoffs six straight years.
After settling for Vogel, the Lakers rebounded by acquiring Anthony Davis in a trade, and then caught fire in the Orlando bubble to win the 17th championship in franchise history.
The Lakers, now, are in a better situation with their roster than in that problematic spring of 2019, but they are dealing with the same problem. In the abstract, the concept of coaching the Los Angeles Lakers seems extremely appealing. Great market, a magnet for players and a tremendous brand.
However, the work itself is extremely challenging right now.
The Lakers finished better than seventh in the Western Conference standings just once in the last 12 seasons (when they won the title in 2019-20). Their franchise player, LeBron James, will turn 40 in December. They have no cap space unless James leaves in free agency (he has until June 29 to make a decision on his $51.4 million player option). They have limited business assets.
They play in a super-competitive conference where the teams behind them are upwardly mobile and aggressive, and most of the teams in front of them will continue to be good, or even improve, for the foreseeable future. And they have a huge, very demanding fan base and are under the constant microscope of the national media because they drive massive audience engagement around the world.
Vogel won a title in 2020. Darvin Ham reached the Western Conference finals in 2023. None lasted more than three seasons. No Lakers coach has done it since Phil Jackson.
These are some of the factors Hurley was no doubt weighing before making his decision over the weekend. It's difficult to even quantify what would be considered a “successful” season for the Lakers in 2024-25 without knowing what changes are made to the roster. Frankly, avoiding the play-in tournament would be a reasonable, if challenging, goal.
It's natural to wonder where exactly the Lakers are now in their coaching search. Being rejected by a college coach isn't the end of the world, but the Lakers' process has left them in a tight window, five weeks after Ham was fired. There are only 16 days left before the 2024 NBA draft, where the Lakers will effectively begin their free agency because they are expected to be active in trade negotiations. The official start of free agency comes just four days later.
The only known candidate visiting Los Angeles besides Hurley is New Orleans associate head coach James Borrego. He is currently a finalist for the Cleveland Cavaliers coaching job and is expected to interview in Cleveland early this week with Golden State Warriors assistant Kenny Atkinson also scheduled for a visit, according to sources.
JJ Redick's name has been linked to the Lakers job since Ham's firing. Redick has been disciplined by not directly discussing the Lakers' work in numerous media appearances in recent weeks, even as rumors swirled around him. But his contact with the team had been minimal, sources said, leading to the Lakers' aggressive pursuit of Hurley.
The Lakers may feel some pressure to land another big name after Hurley turned them down and Redick, despite his lack of experience, would qualify. But in 2019, when he was rejected several times, Pelinka went to the Vogel stable and reaped his reward, albeit in the short term.
Choosing Hurley was surprising and aggressive, but it also told a deeper story: the Lakers weren't in love with the other available candidates. They may continue to look outside the box, perhaps even looking for another college coach now that their willingness to enter that market has become transparent. There may be another coach hired who finds the offer Hurley turned down more attractive than Hurley, especially in the current NCAA environment.
It may be tempting for some who resent the Lakers' famous exceptionalism to have fun at their expense as they face this challenge of their own making. But history says the Lakers are rarely desperate, and even when things don't work out, there tend to be more options at their disposal than are always apparent. This happened to Vogel, who turned out to be the right coach at the right time. It could happen again, maybe even with Redick.
Pelinka is in a difficult situation, but not impossible. His work on the squad this summer, at least in the short term, may end up being more important than hiring this coach.
At least once the egg is out of the team's face.
