Dan Hurley will he be the next coach of the Lakers? This is obviously what the Los Angeles franchise wants, aware that the NBA is changing with the new collective agreement, which makes star meetings very complicated to organize and especially to maintain over time. We will therefore have to draft well, and develop well.
Recruiting the technician from Connecticut, double reigning university champion, in this logic makes sense, even if the NCAA and NBA universes are very different, and the transitions between the two are delicate.
Succeeding in the NCAA then in the NBA is very complicated
Many NCAA coaches have thus broken their teeth in the Big League, from Rick Pitino to John Calipari via PJ Carlesimo, John Beilein, Fred Hoiberg or Lon Kruger. In history, only Larry Brown has won both an NCAA (Kansas Jayhawks, 1988) and NBA (Detroit Pistons, 2004) title as a coach. Because even those who have not had too bad a success in their transition (Brad Stevens, Billy Donovan) have never won the professional Holy Grail.
It should also be remembered that in 2004, the Lakers had already tried to recover a great university coach. It was then a matter of Mike Krzyzewski, the Duke coach, to whom Los Angeles had offered a golden bridge: $40 million over five years, an enormous sum for a coach twenty years ago. But Coach K refused.
“Your heart must be where you must lead” he explained at the time on the reasons for his choice to remain at the head of the Blue Devils. “This decision became a little easier to make when it became clear that you had to follow your heart and lead with it. And Duke has always occupied my whole heart. »
Mike Krzyzewski was, however, the priority of the GM of the Lakers at the time, Mitch Kupchak, to take over from Phil Jackson, who had left the ship a few days after the defeat in the Finals against Detroit.
“We are disappointed because we would have liked to bring Coach Krzyzewski to Los Angeles”released the manager, who was preparing to trade Shaquille O'Neal to Miami a few days later, to leave the keys to the franchise to Kobe Bryant. “We thought he would have been a great coach. »
No regrets
The “Black Mamba” had also lobbied for Coach K to take the position, but the latter ultimately chose to stay at Duke, to win two more university titles (2010 and 2015 after two in 1991, 1992 and 2001). ). A decision that he assures he has never regretted.
“I was 57 years old, and I wondered if there were still things to discover, even though I loved what I was doing and I loved Duke. I didn't see myself doing this forever, and I knew Kobe. They came to my house and offered a lot of money. The Emily Krzyzewski Center was being built at that time and they offered to cover the construction costs to finish it. When they left home, I realized it was a generational issue. We all need people who believe in us in life. And the guy who hired me here, Tom Butters, who has since passed away, believed in me three times, three times at critical times. He was no longer my superior but I called him, 25 years after my arrival. I told him, 'Tom, when you hired me, you paid me $40,000,' and to be honest, I took the job without knowing how much I was going to get, but that's another thing. history. At the time, financially speaking, it was a lot of money, but I was offered $40 million. So I say to him: 'Tom, 40,000 dollars, 40 million, what do you think?' He replied: 'I think you should give me a percentage of 10%'. I told him he was an idiot while laughing. But I couldn't do it. I love Duke so much. The irony of the story is that two years later, Jerry Colangelo asked me to coach the American national team. I accepted and I loved it. We won three gold medals at the Olympic Games, two world championships and also two university championships. It was interesting at the time, but I'm glad I didn't do it.” he explained a few years ago.
Finally, and somewhat by default, it was Rudy Tomjanovich who inherited the position… leaving him during the season, officially for health reasons. Enough to allow Phil Jackson to recover it the following year.
