Dan Hurley was anticipated to be the subsequent coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, however he declined and JJ Redick took over as an alternative.
Over the summer season, the Los Angeles Lakers fired head coach Darvin Ham after his second season and appeared poised to run it again with principally the identical solid of characters.
Each LeBron James and Anthony Davis would stay within the Purple and Gold, and apart from bringing in JJ Redick, the Lakers didn’t appear very lively on the open market.
In fact, the remainder is historical past, because the Lakers traded Davis for Luka Doncic, and Redick is heralded as the most effective coaches within the NBA already. Nevertheless, regardless of his friendship with James, it appeared like he was the franchise’s second alternative.
Recent off a second consecutive NCAA males’s basketball championship, Dan Hurley was open to leaving the College of Connecticut and testing the waters within the NBA, and the Lakers appeared like a premier vacation spot. Nevertheless, he opted to remain in Storrs and hold teaching faculty.
Regardless of having one much less championship banner than the Boston Celtics, the Lakers are thought to be the premier group within the NBA, and training in Los Angeles is the final word dream job for anybody on the sidelines.
Hurley (and his spouse) have been each in awe of the celebrity and mystique that may have include main the cost for the Lakers, though he admits that on the finish it wasn’t a lot of a alternative.
“We went forwards and backwards, there have been clearly a number of positives and the problem was thrilling,” stated Dan Hurley on 60 Minutes of teaching the Lakers. “There have been positively instances the place you thought you have been going.”
Hurley is legendary for his aggressive method and borderline abusive teaching fashion, nevertheless it delivers outcomes and his gamers come out of it with solely positives to say about him.
The stress of the NBA wouldn’t have affected him the best way it might have gotten to most first-year head coaches, however he in the end determined that faculty was proper for him.
Whereas teaching the perfect gamers on this planet actually has its justifiable share of attract, Hurley as an alternative needed to proceed to be extra of a instructor and mentor, which isn’t as central to the job of NBA coach.
“School teaching, in comparison with the NBA, there’s extra of a way of goal to it,” Hurley continued.
“There simply is due to the affect you possibly can have on a 17-year-old, a 19-year-old, what you possibly can imply for them of their life is one thing that you just don’t get in professional sports activities the identical approach. You’re the final group of individuals that’s going to actually educate these youngsters a number of what they should study to achieve success, to make them more durable, to make them higher, simply to arrange them for what life’s going to be like.”
In fact, NBA coaches earn more money than faculty coaches and have extra particular person clout, though Hurley understands that UConn’s fame is nothing to miss.
“UConn basketball is likely one of the best-known manufacturers on this planet,” he completed.
With two straight titles below his belt and a 22-9 document this season, Hurley has made essentially the most of his seven seasons main the Huskies.
