Pete Thamel: Dan Hurley flirtation with NBA, Lakers due to 'cloudy' future of college basketball

ESPN’s Pete Thamel revealed the reason for UConn coach Dan Hurley’s flirtation with the Los Angeles Lakers.

The Lakers are expected to go all in on Hurley as the next head coach, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. BUt why would Hurley leave a basketball power after two straight titles and being poised for a third?

Werll, the changing landscape of college athletics and, it is the Lakers after all.

“I think it comes down and can be distilled by one succinct point. Why play in a league and coach in a league and run a team in a league that is a quasi professional league that’s figuring it out when you can actually go to an established professional league and coach in that league that has it figured out,” Thamel said on Get Up. 

“That has its TV contracts lined up that has its business in order that isn’t subject to the whims of random court cases and sporadic enforcement. College sports are professional sports, but they are not as well run and they’re not as distinct as the established American professional sports.”

Hurley is in a landscape where college athletics are no longer amateurism. And who knows what UConn basketball means in the grand scheme of things as college transitions to whatever pro model?

“So as we’re making this transition to quasi professional and losing the amateur status, you could obviously argue it was lost long ago,” Thamel said. “The rules of engagement are just cloudy right now. Clear as mud is what a bunch of SEC ADs and presidents told me about the future of college athletics in Destin. So you can either you can either coach and work and clear as mud or you can go to a place where the bottom line is very simple.

“The reporting structure is very clear in the future, especially looking at a place like UConn that doesn’t have big time football as a driver. (And) doesn’t have the TV contracts that the SEC and the Big Ten have, the future there is going to be difficult to project.”

Sure, hurley is at a basketball power where UConn runs the athletic department compared to football. But what if football breaks away? What happens then?
It might be time to go to LA.

“Then Greeny we could do a whole show on will there eventually be a break away of big time football,” Thamel said. “Where does that leave the NCAA? Where does that leave the NCAA tournament? When Mike Krzyzewski made this decision 20 years ago, it was a radically different decision than the one Dan Hurley is making now and the primary reason for that is the entire plate tectonics of college athletics have shifted drastically.”