Lakers get cheap on a coaching candidate again
The Lakers were reportedly preparing a "massive" offer for Dan Hurley. It wasn't nearly massive enough to persuade him to leave Connecticut.
Hurley has won back-to-back titles at UConn in two of the most dominant NCAA Tournament runs in recent memory. His Huskies have won 12 straight March Madness games by double digits.
This year, they outscored their opponents by an average of 23.3 points. In 2023, UConn gave Hurley a six-year contract worth $32.1M.
The problem with the Lakers' offer is that it simply wasn't big enough. To lure away college basketball's top coach, the offer needed to do more than make Hurley the sixth-highest-paid coach in the league.
Their offer gave Hurley a raise, but it was only slightly more than the salary he'd already turned down to coach at the University of Kentucky back in April.
Perhaps Hurley wouldn't have left the Huskies for any amount, but by low-balling the coach, the Lakers made his decision much easier.
It's not the first time this has happened to them, either.
In 2019, the Lakers wanted to hire Ty Lue, who won a title coaching LeBron James in Cleveland. But Lue pulled out of talks when the Lakers only offered a three-year contract for around $18M. Lue chose to take an assistant job instead, then became head coach of the crosstown Clippers in 2020.
This summer, Lue signed an extension through the 2028-29 season. Meanwhile, the Lakers are looking for their third head coach since Lue turned them down, though they're still not shopping at the top of the head coach market.
Last summer, Monty Williams was not planning to coach in the 2023-24 season until the Detroit Pistons made him the NBA's highest-paid coach. Subsequent extensions for title-winning coaches Steve Kerr, Gregg Popovich and Erik Spoelstra have exceeded Williams' compensation, but paying big is the way to sway a reluctant coach, especially when the job is viewed negatively in the NBA.
The Lakers also let All-Defensive guard Alex Caruso walk in the summer of 2021 to avoid luxury taxes. It simply feels like the Buss family pinches pennies at key moments, to the detriment of their chances of winning.
For a team with James and Anthony Davis, it has been repeatedly reluctant to go all-in financially. Missing out on its dream head coach is just one more example.
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