UConn males’s basketball head coach Dan Hurley turned down a profitable six-year contract supply from the Los Angeles Lakers.
Hurley broke his silence Thursday and made it clear he didn’t reject the Lakers’ supply to realize leverage along with his present employer.
The two-time nationwide championship-winning coach mentioned he had already agreed to the phrases of a brand new cope with UConn earlier than he declined the Lakers’ supply.
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Connecticut Huskies head coach Dan Hurley shouts to his staff in the course of the males’s NCAA nationwide championship recreation in opposition to the Purdue Boilermakers at State Farm Stadium in Glendale April 8, 2024. (Joe Rondone/The Republic/USA Today Network)
“One of the worst takes I’ve heard is that this can be a leverage play by me to enhance my state of affairs at UConn,” the Huskies coach mentioned throughout a latest look on “The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz.”
“I do not want leverage right here. We’ve received back-to-back nationwide championships at this place. This was by no means a leverage state of affairs for me.
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“I’ve had a contract in place right here for a few weeks. And the ultimate half, by way of wage, has been performed for some time. There are another components, like NIL and employees wage and a few various things, that I need adjusted and I’m not comfy with. But the sense of the concept that this was some conspiracy to get me a sweeter deal at UConn is simply, it is lazy.”
Dan Hurley of the Connecticut Huskies indicators to his gamers in the course of the nationwide championship recreation in opposition to the Purdue Boilermakers at State Farm Stadium April 8, 2024, in Glendale, Ariz. (Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)
UConn has but to announce a brand new deal for Hurley. He coached final season on a six-year, $32.1 million deal. Kansas males’s basketball coach Bill Self is the highest-paid faculty coach.
Hurley did journey to Los Angeles to fulfill with Lakers common supervisor Rob Pelinka and staff proprietor Jeanie Buss. While Hurley didn’t meet with LeBron James, he did interact in a textual content trade with the four-time NBA champion.
“We had some textual content messages … an unbelievable message from [James] over the course of the weekend. Just speaking about basketball and a few various things and letting me know that if he was there in LA that I’d have his help,” Hurley advised Fox Sports’ Colin Cowherd throughout Thursday’s version of “The Herd.”
Hurley mentioned it was not simple deciding between teaching in Los Angeles and staying put in Connecticut to pursue a 3rd straight nationwide championship.
“It was a gut-wrenching resolution for me,” he mentioned. “Sunday night time, going into Monday, the place I sort of had a deadline in my thoughts, I used to be torn, and I didn’t know actually what I used to be going to do till I went to mattress.”
Dan Hurley of the Connecticut Huskies reacts within the first half in opposition to the Purdue Boilermakers in the course of the NCAA nationwide championship recreation at State Farm Stadium April 8, 2024, in Glendale, Ariz. (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
Hurley did admit the Lakers would have needed to make him a proposal he couldn’t have refused for him to depart UConn.
“To go away, there in all probability is [a number],” he mentioned. “To go away a spot at any second in your life, to say that it is not a motivating issue … the funds to depart a spot is certainly a factor. To keep at a spot, I do not suppose it’s ever going to be a factor. To keep someplace like UConn, it might by no means have been a monetary factor.”
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Hurley reiterated that he was not entertaining the Lakers as some kind of “stress tactic” and that he was already as a consequence of change into the highest-paid faculty basketball coach.
“This wasn’t like some stress tactic to make me the highest-paid faculty coach. That was already performed. But to depart a spot that you just really feel the best way we do and the household reference to my spouse, my sons, my mother-in-law, my father. … I understand how a lot it means to my dad to go to the Big East event and are available to 10 UConn video games a 12 months at dwelling, sitting courtside when I’m teaching in opposition to Rick Pitino. To go away all of that behind, there in all probability is a quantity.”
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