Report: Dan Hurley informed UConn team he's 'in talks' with LA Lakers
Dan Hurley reportedly met with his UConn basketball players that he’s in talks with the Los Angeles Lakers, according to Fox Sports’ John Fanta.
This is a real discussion, per Fanta. The Lakers are ready to put on a full-court press, no pun intended, to land the Huskies’ coach.
However, Hurley and the Lakers is not set in stone just yet and there’s yet to be any sort of decision.
“Dan Hurley met with his players at UConn this morning and informed them he’s been in talks with the Lakers, a source tells Fox Sports,” Fanta wrote on Twitter. “Hurley didn’t want to hide the fact that this is real. Huskies have a noon practice and Hurley told his players it’s business as usual for now.”
The news of the Lakers going after Hurley comes just a few days after it was reported the Lakers had their eyes set on ESPN analyst and former NBA and Duke guard JJ Redick for the job. On Tuesday, Shams Charania reported that the Lakers were ‘zeroing in on’ Redick as their next coach.
Hurley has been the head coach at UConn for the last six seasons and has taken the program to extraordinary heights. After taking Rhode Island to the second round of the NCAA Tournament twice in six seasons, Hurley moved on to UConn. By just his third season, Hurley had the Huskies back in the NCAA Tournament. Success did not take long to find.
In his fifth season as head coach, Hurley led a 4-seed Huskies team all the way to the national championship. Despite the pressure of repeating in 2023-24, UConn did just that, looking rather dominant in every game it played along the way to its second straight national championship.
In six seasons with the Huskies, Hurley has a record of 141-58. He is 292-163 overall in his college coaching career. To go along with that record, Hurley has reached the NCAA Tournament a grand total of six times, holding a 14-4 record in it. Hurley was the national Coach of the Year in 2024, the Big East Coach of the Year in 2024 and the A-10 Coach of the Year in 2018.
If the money and contract is right, Hurley would be crazy to not take the Lakers’ gig, according to UConn women’s coach Geno Auriemma.
“If Danny were to leave, and somebody said to me, you know, he just took this NBA job,” Auriemma said on the Dan Patrick Show. “I won’t name any particular city, I would say, you know, you’re set up for failure. But it’s the Lakers and I don’t know the details of it, but if you’re saying hey, I want a 10 year deal. I want the same deal Brad Stevens got at Boston … Then you know what? Andrea, his wife might not like me, but he’s crazy if he doesn’t take it.”