LeBron James distanced himself from the Los Angeles Lakers coaching search. But his words still carried weight nonetheless.
According to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, James told the Lakers to look for a coach who would lead the franchise beyond his playing years. And that’s what they did as they are heavily pursuing back-to-back NCAA champion coach Dan Hurley of UConn, which ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski first broke on early Thursday, June 6.
“When LeBron met with the Lakers to talk about the head-coaching searching, what he told them was ‘Don’t make a decision based on me for this next year or two. Make the best decision that you can make for the Lakers franchise for the next decade,'” Windhorst said on “Get Up” on Thursday.
That was the message and it wasn’t ‘Hire JJ Redick.’ It wasn’t hire this guy over here. It was ‘Make the best decision for the franchise.’ That was what he’s been standing on and has been related for actually longer than just this search but that’s what he told them.”
Post-LeBron Lakers Coach
Hurley is the most successful college coach over the last two seasons, winning 52 of his last 57 games at UConn.
The expectation is not for the Lakers to rebuild but rather try to win in the final years of James bridge his and Anthony Davis’ era while developing young players with star chasing slowly becoming a vogue in roster building in the wake of the new restrictive Collective Bargaining Agreement.
“This potential hire is not about the 2024-25 Lakers. Yes, he would come in and there would be expectations that he could hopefully, if this happens, improve them and work with LeBron but this would be something that they’d be investing in for a long period of time post-LeBron, Anthony Davis, players that are not even on their map right now,” Windhorst continued.
Hurley could also be the right coach to develop Bronny James if the Lakers select him in the upcoming NBA Draft.
JJ Redick as Frontrunner Was a Smokescreen
The Lakers’ top target was Hurley all along, according to Wojnarowski, which contradicted The Athletic’s Shams Charania’s June 4 report that the team was zeroing in on Redick and it was expected to be announced after the NBA Finals.
The rumor of Redick poised to take over the Lakers coaching job got some legs when he did not dismiss Charania’s reporting that he was the frontrunner.
“My focus is on the NBA Finals. In terms of Shams, that will be addressed once the season is over,” Redick said on the “GoJo and Golic” podcast on June 5. “I’ll just say that.”
“My focus is on the NBA Finals. In terms of Shams, that will be addressed once the season is over. I’ll just say that.”
@jj_redick addresses the elephant in the room — the rumors of the Lakers’ interest in him as their new Head Coach
According to Los Angeles Times’ Dan Woike, the Redick news was just a smokescreen.
“Internally at the top, though, that assessment was met with talk of a wide-open process, with some dismissing the Redick talk as the leader as just “noise”,” Los Angeles Times’ Dan Woike wrote on June 6.
The level of secrecy of the Lakers’ pursuit of Hurley even sent shockwaves within the organization.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever been more shocked,” one high-ranking official told Woike.
Hurley’s emergence from out of nowhere also left oddsmakers stunned.
As of June 5, Redick was the odds-on favorite to become the Lakers’ next coach. DraftKings listed Redick as a -210 favorite (67.7% probability) with James Borrego a distant second at +400 (20% probability). They listed 19 candidates as they even included former Lakers players Rajon Rondo and Pau Gasol, for bettors, who can track all the odds from their favorite sportsbooks at Bettor In Green, to choose from.
But Hurley was not on the list.
