People across the NBA are still asking why Dan Hurley rejected the Los Angeles Lakers’ head coaching offer and decided to remain at the University of Connecticut.
Was it because the Lakers offered “only” $70 million over six years, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski? Was it because of the issues they have inside of their organization? Or was it simply because he is very content at Connecticut and didn’t want to give that up and make major lifestyle changes?
One report indicated it wasn’t because the Lakers didn’t offer enough money. But while on the “Dan Le Batard Show with Stu Gotz,” Hurley did say that a higher offer likely would’ve gotten him to head to Southern California (h/t Lakers Nation).
“Yeah, I think to leave there probably is. To leave a place at any moment in your life, I think to say that it’s not a motivating factor – the finances –to leave a place, it’s definitely a thing. To stay at a place, I don’t think it’s ever gonna be a thing. To stay somewhere like UConn, it would have never been a financial thing. Like again, this wasn’t some like pressure tactic to make me the highest-paid college coach, that [expletive] was already done. But to leave a place that you feel the way we do and the family connection with my wife and my sons, my mother-in-law,, my father who I know how much it means to my dad to go to the Big East Tournament and to come to 10 UConn games a year at home and sit courtside when I’m coaching against Rick Patino. Yeah, to leave all that behind, there probably is a number. I don’t know what that is.”
The Northeast is all Hurley has ever known. He was born and raised in Jersey City, N.J., where his legendary father coached high school basketball, and he has always coached in either New York, New Jersey or Connecticut.
He has guided the Huskies to back-to-back NCAA championships the last two seasons, and he will be going for a threepeat next season.