The Los Angeles Lakers’ decision to target Dan Hurley as their next head coach aligns both with what they want to accomplish long-term and the message LeBron James sent to them about his future with the franchise as he nears the end of his career. James informed the Lakers that their next head coach would have to be one that was also a good fit after his exit.
“When this process started for the Lakers when they dismissed Darvin Ham, they obviously spoke to LeBron about the coaching situation,” said Brian Windhorst on First Take. “From what I understand, what LeBron said to them was, ‘You have to hire somebody who is for beyond just me. I might be here for another year. I might be here for two years. You’ve got to make a decision that’s built around Anthony Davis. That’s built around what the Lakers need for the next decade, not just what I need.’
“Certainly, his feelings on the head coach are going to be taken into account, but that’s the message LeBron gave them. This type of hire this type of going for this type of candidate aligns with that.
“Secondly, LeBron has praised Dan Hurley and his acumen very recently in public especially after this podcast he did with J.J. Redick. It is incredibly ironic that he just did a podcast right after [Hurley] won the second national title in a row with J.J. talking about X’s and O’s, talking about where he gets some of his creativity, talking about how he’s morphed as a coach. And I do think that is going to be received positively by LeBron.
“Any coaching person any anybody that the Lakers were looking for in this hire is going to be some level of a risk because there wasn’t a bonafide highly proven NBA coach sitting there. The only coach that was really out there that met that criteria was Mike Budenholzer. The Suns moved in on that very quickly and made that hire.
“Whoever the Lakers were going to hire, they were going to have to step out a little bit of their comfort zone. So that’s one of the reasons why you saw J.J. Redick’s name attached to it, because they were looking for somebody who had very high potential yeah so if you’re going to take a you’re going to make a high risk hire, which any coach who never been a head coach in the NBA would be what you want is a high reward. Dan Hurley is a high reward type situation.”
Windhorst previously added during a spot on Get Up the James didn’t suggest they hire Redick.