Dan Hurley ignored father’s advice to take Lakers job last offseason

Before the Los Angeles Lakers agreed to sign J.J. Redick to a four-year deal to be their next head coach and Darvin Ham’s successor, the storied franchise gave University of Connecticut men’s basketball head coach Dan Hurley a lucrative offer to lead the team from the sidelines.

Los Angeles offered Hurley a contract that would’ve paid him a whopping $70 million over six years, but he turned down the offer for an opportunity to coach the Huskies to their third national championship in a row.

Allegedly, Hurley’s father advised him to take the Lakers job last offseason, but he ignored his dad’s wishes.

“The thing with my dad is, at different points in my career, he’s advised us to make the move and take the job, and he never did,” Hurley said. “I always took my dad’s advice on career advancement with a heavy grain of salt, because he never left St. Anthony. The one thing I don’t listen to Bob Hurley Sr. about is how to advance my career, because he never left his high school when he could have coached at any level.”

The younger Hurley wasn’t able to lead the Huskies to their third NCAA championship in a row last season. The team lost to the University of Florida — which went on to win the national title — by just two points early on in the tournament.

While UConn underwhelmed under the younger Hurley a season ago, the Lakers exceeded expectations in Redick’s maiden season as their head coach. Los Angeles won 50 games during the 2024-25 regular season and ended up as the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference.

The Lakers are now in a much better position to compete in the West for years to come than they were when they offered the younger Hurley the job, too. It’s interesting to think about whether the younger Hurley would have made a different decision if he knew the Lakers were only months away from acquiring star guard Luka Doncic from the Dallas Mavericks.

Doncic is one of the best basketball players on the planet and already has a resume worthy of the Hall of Fame despite being a spring chicken at just 26 years old.

Maybe the younger Hurley will go on to lead UConn to more national titles in the years to come, but at this point in time, his decision to go against his father’s advice and spurn the Lakers gig hasn’t aged well.

He turned down an opportunity to coach one of the marquee franchises in all of sports, and only time will tell if he made the right decision.