Trevor Lane | Host of Lakers Nation

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Excludes restaurants. Additional terms and fees apply. John Fanta, who does a great job covering college basketball and the big East. It's kind of saying he thinks a Danny Hurley decision will be made in the next 72 hours.

He said things could change, but he wouldn't expect this to be drawn out. Obviously, Danny Hurley acknowledged it today with his team that the Lakers are pursuing him and he's had conversations with the Los Angeles Lakers for their open head coaching position. Earlier in the week, we all thought it was going to be JJ Reddick.

Now there's an unknown because there's a big fish out there and his name is Danny Hurley. When we want to talk about the Lakers, we of course go to Trevor Lane, who does a great job as a host of Lakers Nation. And he's kind enough to join us once again on the Zach Gelb show on the Infinity Sports Network. Trevor, always great to see you.

Thanks so much for doing this. How you been? Doing well. Busy, of course. Crazy day in Laker land, but I appreciate you having me on the show, Zach.

Yeah, thanks so much for coming on. So when you saw this whoa bomb this morning that the Lakers are targeting Danny Hurley, what was the initial reaction? I don't think I can swear on this show, Zach, but it was complete and utter shock.

Couldn't believe it because all I am, perhaps what blows me away the most out of any of this is that they kept this so quiet for so long. All of us had been hearing it's JJ Reddick. It's going to be JJ.

That's the way this is going to go. This was from out of nowhere. Suddenly Dan Hurley's name pops up. I mean, that was absolutely incredible.

The wee hours of the morning and I was as surprised as everybody else was. I get why Danny Hurley would be interested. Number one, it's the Lakers. It's now an easier lifestyle in the year of 2024 to be a pro coach to be a pro coach rather than a college coach. And it's going to come with an enormous salary raise.

They'll probably double if not more than that his salary than what he currently makes at UConn. But you look at the coaching style. Danny Hurley's a demanding coach. Danny Hurley has a quirky personality.

We know what the NBA is nowadays. Would this be a good fit? We know he has the credentials and he's a great coach, but would this fit in an NBA locker room knowing who Danny Hurley is and what made him so great?

I think it can. I think it's going to take a bit of an adjustment on his part. It's going to take a bit of an adjustment from the players as well to understand who he is and where he's coming from now. He comes to it with obviously some serious credentials where you're looking at back-to-back NCAA titles. Now he's coming potentially to the NBA. He will have to adjust his style a little bit.

NBA refs are a little bit different than college refs. You've got players who are making, in some cases, more than him. Given how much this deal could be, a lot of them won't be making more than him, but still you've got players who are going to be making more than him.

Superstars, guys like LeBron A.D. He will have to adjust a bit and that will be a hurdle for him to overcome. But again, it'll be adjustment on both sides. Both the team has to understand who he is and that's kind of just the way that he is and how he's wired, but he's also going to have to tone things down a little bit should he make this leap.

Trevor Lane here with us. What do you think the contract could be? Like I was spitballing. I said six years, 80 million dollars. You know, similar to what Monty Williams got to go to the Pistons.

That's what I was kind of thinking. A little over 13 million dollars a year for Danny Hurley. Yeah, that's what I'm guessing it will be. I would say even up to up to maybe 15. I mean look, right now when we're looking at coaches in the NBA, we're starting to see, particularly this offseason, more and more guys hit that 10 million mark.

That seems to be the standard number. Now Darvin Ham with the Lakers was sitting right around 5 million. That number's gone up quite a bit, especially this offseason. Mike Budenholzer kind of started off getting 10 million from the Suns, actually a little bit more than that, and now you're seeing guys get extensions right around that number. If they're going to convince Dan Hurley that he's going to leave a championship program, they're going to have to offer him something very, very significant, especially if they want to send the message that they're committing to building a program with him, which I think is an interesting shift for the Lakers in the terms of their philosophy, but if they're going to build the program with them, this is going to be a very significant financial commitment.

It wouldn't shock me at all if the number winds up somewhere in that 12 to maybe even 15 million per season range. Talking to Trevor Lane, host of Lakers Nation. So when you have a coach like Danny Hurley, I don't think he needs to use a franchise for negotiations. He got a new deal and they changed up his deal after the first national championship. They haven't done that after the second national championship. I would have thought that would have already happened when Kentucky was pursuing him this off season.

He elected to stay in Storrs, Connecticut. Is there at all any of that thought that maybe he's using the Lakers a little bit, not that the interest isn't genuine, but to get just more money out of UConn? I mean, that potential is certainly there, but even so, I think the Lakers, they'll take their shot. There's only so many opportunities that you have to jump to the NBA. I mean, we saw it with Kevin Ollie, who he kind of delayed, delayed, delayed, and then maybe the opportunity slips away. And particularly when it's a team like the Lakers, a brand like that, if he really wants to make his mark at the pro level.

And he said for a while that that's something he wants to do. He wants to coach in the NBA. You'd have the coach, the chance to coach LeBron. You'd have the chance to coach Anthony Davis, but it sounds like what the Lakers are going to try to sell him on, on not only do you get to coach these guys right now, but think about who we could add for the future. You want to win titles in the NBA. You're not going to find a better opportunity than to do it right now with us. So I think that even if this is some sort of negotiating ploy on the part of Hurley, I think the Lakers will take it and they're going to take their best shot to convince them that no, now is the time for you to make this leap.

Trevor Lane here with us. I saw Dave McMenamin put out there, LeBron James has not had any conversations with the Lakers about Dan Hurley or JJ Redick and the coaching search in general for that matter. A source familiar with the situation told ESPN today, keep people keep on saying that, you know, that's tough for me to believe, but is that actually true that LeBron has had no say whatsoever in this coaching search? I doubt it.

I mean, I would, I would be shocked. It would be, it would go against everything that we've seen from not just LeBron, but superstars across the league. Anytime a coach is going to be hired to a team, the superstar is checked in with not necessarily meaning they have decision making power, but they still check in.

And so I don't know if it goes to that extent that he's had absolutely zero say, I highly doubt that's the case. However, the main point that he's not the decision maker here, that's been something they've been trying to drive home for over a month now. They've been trying to make sure, Hey, if it's JJ Redick, it's not because of LeBron, whatever they pick. And I also liked that Dave mentioned that it is, uh, it's because LeBron understands that they're going to have to pick a coach that's going to be around post LeBron around after he's gone, that he wants to make sure the franchise does right by them. LeBron is saying, look, I have no hand in this. They're going to make the decision. It's not on me.

Nobody's getting the job because of me. So I don't buy that he's had zero say or no conversation whatsoever, but LeBron's going out of his way to make sure it's clear that this is a Lakers decision and all the credit or blame it's going to fall on them. Why do you think that is? Because I'm with you. I think that LeBron has a major say in this and a major input in it.

Why do they both sides kind of keep on trying to push that, that, uh, notion away? Well, I think that when you look at, particularly, let's say it's JJ Redick and LeBron obviously is good friends with JJ Redick. If it winds up being JJ, it's a tough job to walk into. If the perception is he's LeBron's guy, he got the job because of LeBron. He's got to walk in with credibility. Now, maybe that's a little bit different, obviously with Dan Hurley walking in with instant credibility, but JJ is going to have a lot of red flags. If he winds up being, being the coach. And so it made a lot of sense for LeBron to push back.

No, no, no, this isn't. I have no say in this. It's not because JJ is my buddy, nothing.

I'm a podcast partner, whatever nothing's going on there. He's going to want to try to fight against that narrative. If only to help JJ, but also for the blame situation, you know, he took a lot of flack for the Russell Westbrook trade for being a guy that was pushing for that deal. And so a lot of the blame wound up falling on LeBron. There were a lot of people who, who resented LeBron for how poorly that went down.

And I think he still stings a little bit from that situation. So we say, look, this is the next big decision. This is on the Lakers. I'm not going to put myself in the line of fire here.

You guys do whatever is best for you and then I'll adjust it and we'll go from there. I remember a few years ago, the Lakers could have had Ty Lue. I think if they were going to give him a fourth year and they only wanted to give him a third year, if we shoot the Lakers up with true serum, they got to regret that decision, right? Because it seems like every few years we're in a Lakers coaching conversation with LeBron. A hundred percent.

Yeah. It's, I mean, looking back now they were on the one yard line and they fumbled. It was, they were, they were right there ready to sign Ty Lue and they, they got into an argument over how many years it was going to be. They wanted to tie his contract with LeBron's just in case, you know, LeBron decided to leave or something like that. They were also being pretty picky about who assistant coaches would potentially be and and coming off of Luke Walton, that was something that they were concerned about and so things fell apart and I think it was a big mistake. I'll tell you this, it was enough of a mistake to where had Ty Lue broken free of the Clippers early on in the process, I think this is already done.

This is over. Ty Lue would be the Lakers coach. They would have swooped in on him immediately because I do think they regret the way that played out. Frank Vogel got them a championship, but Ty Lue was LeBron's guy and now LeBron saying, Hey, you didn't get me Ty Lue. You didn't get me Kyrie.

You even let Jared Dudley and Alex Caruso go. The Lakers have a history of not necessarily doing what LeBron wants. So here we've got LeBron saying, you know what? You guys make the decision here.

This isn't about me and we'll see how this ultimately plays out. But yes, I think they regret not hiring Ty Lue back when they had the chance. Trevor Lane here with us for a few more minutes. So on Monday from Shams, it was the Lakers are targeting JJ Redick. Everyone thought it was going to be JJ Redick. Then today it's Woge saying that the Lakers are targeting Dan Hurley. Ultimately when they have a press conference, hopefully next week or two weeks from now, whatever it will be in the coming weeks, who do you think will be the next head coach of the Lakers if you had to take a guess?

If I had to take a guess now, and I wouldn't have said this yesterday, but if I had to take a guess now, I'd say it's Dan Hurley. I think the Lakers are going to go all out. They're going to do everything they can to land him. It won't be an easy sell, but I think they're going to try to put out an offer that he can't refuse. So I think it is going to be him. And yeah, the reporting wars were fascinating with this one.

I like it like this. I think Woge just went on a 15-0 run on Shams this morning. We'll see how Shams responds as the story progresses here. How about LeBron's future? It seems like it's 99.9% just to be safe a little bit that LeBron is back with the Lakers next year. Yeah, I think he's going to wind up back in LA.

Now, there's some other attractive options out there. The Philadelphia 76ers have a max contract available. They're going to pursue guys like Paul George, like Jimmy Butler, or maybe Brandon Ingram. LeBron will certainly be on that list as well. But looking at the situation aside from potentially Philly teaming up with Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, there's a lot of teams that would love to have LeBron and every team has to have the conversation about how could we potentially land him. But a lot of the landing spots that we hear like Phoenix, could they draft Brawny at 22 and then somehow persuade LeBron to head out the 10 freeway and join them in the desert?

They only have a better minimum salary to offer. There's not many teams that can offer a full max salary and an opportunity to win. And I think ultimately, LeBron is a guy who likes being around his family. His family likes being in LA.

They like Southern California. I think he's going to wind up right back with the Lakers. It doesn't seem like there's anything to suggest that he won't. I do expect him to opt out of that contract. He's not going to pick up that player option, but that's just to sign a new deal.

That will not be cause for alarm. I always expected him to not pick up that player option. I think he's going to sign a new deal with the Lakers and we'll get that news sometime late June, early July. We'll find out what LeBron's deal is going to look like, whether it's three years, two years, whatever it is. And when you envision next year's Lakers, we already talked about the coaching. We already talked about LeBron. Is Brony with LeBron? Do you think that ends up happening in the draft?

You know, I kind of think it does. I don't know exactly how they're going to get there because Brony, to his credit, we've seen his draft stock rise. He played pretty well at the NBA draft combine. And so I think that getting him with the 55th pick, which is the second round of the Lakers have, may no longer be realistic. Maybe they need to make a move to move up to get him. But I do think that it could be a way, you know, LeBron, okay, you're not going to be involved in the coaching search as much.

You're not going to have as much of a say on players. We're going to focus more around AD. I think this would be a nice gesture by the Lakers to land Brony, let LeBron accomplish this long time goal. I know he has walked back his comments there, but you know, he would be thrilled with the opportunity to play with his son. And so I think the Lakers will, within reason, do what they can to make that happen. Obviously you have a pulse on the Laker nation with Danny Hurley's name getting thrown out there.

That's where everyone's attention is going to turn to. If it's not Danny Hurley and it ends up being JJ Redick, how do you think the Lakers fan would react to that? There's going to be disappointment at this point, if it winds up being JJ Redick, because so many of the red flags with JJ about having never coached before and things of that nature.

How is he going to manage a locker room? A lot of those concerns, while they're not completely erased with Dan Hurley, they are certainly mitigated by bringing him in. So there's a lot of excitement about him coming on board and excitement about the future direction of the team and this new philosophy about developing a program and really conforming to the new collective bargaining agreement of the NBA and taking advantage of the ability to develop talent and the necessity to develop talent. Something the Lakers haven't really relied upon to the same degree as other teams.

They've relied on the ability to bring in superstars and kind of believing the rest will just kind of take care of itself. Now with this new direction with Dan Hurley, if he ends up joining, that will be a push towards really acquiring and developing young talent and I think there's a lot of people that are excited about that potential direction. So I think there's going to be a disappointment from Lakers fans if it does wind up being JJ Redick at this stage because there were already so many concerns about whether or not this was the right move to begin with. Is there a chance that it could be somebody else because it seems like if it's Hurley do you say yes or no and if he says no then it's going to be JJ Redick but let's be real no one even thought Hurley was a possibility up until earlier this morning. Exactly I mean it could still be James Borrego it could still be someone like Sam Cassell maybe it does wind up being someone else but see at this point I would have said yesterday I would have said no there's no it's JJ that's all we've heard is JJ it's going to be JJ Redick. I didn't think the Lakers would be able to pull this off keeping this quiet for as long as they did so who knows what else they've got hidden out there. So never say never maybe there is somebody else that's a backup candidate that we just haven't heard of again I would not have guessed that they've been able to keep something this big quiet for this long and they pulled it off so who knows what else they've got scheming in El Segundo right now. Well that's the other thing if they were able to really keep this quiet as long as they said that this was a possibility the fact that it's out there now and I know Woj is very close to the Hurley family like does that at all make you feel like this is definitely going to happen because it wouldn't get out there if it wasn't going to happen. Yeah I don't know if I'll say it's definitely going to happen but it tells me it's very real because Woj's connection with Dan Hurley that to me Woj is not publishing this report without talking to Dan Hurley hey you okay if I run with this right those conversations are going to legitimate legs obviously. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance whether you love true crime or comedy celebrity interviews or news you call the shots on what's in your podcast queue and guess what now you can call them on your auto insurance too with the name your price tool from progressive it works just the way it sounds you tell progressive how much you want to pay for car insurance and they'll show you coverage options that fit your budget get your quote today at progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust progressive progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates price and coverage match limited by state law doors take us to summers away or winter adventures and afternoon getaways your dedicated fidelity advisor can help you open those doors by working with you on a comprehensive plan to help you reach your wealth's full potential because doors were meant to be opened visit fidelity.com wealth investment minimum supply fidelity brokerage services LLC member NYSE SIPC temp check what kind of summer are we having this year a family road trip summer a beach bum summer or awake me when the sun sets summer with insta cart choose your own adventure and skip the shopping side quests where available you can get ice cream delivered to your hotel sunscreen to the pool or cold brew to your bed well store in as fast as 30 minutes wherever you find yourself this summer you can get the goods download insta cart for free delivery on your first three orders offer valid for a limited time minimum ten dollars per order excludes restaurants additional terms and fees apply exactly exactly this is this is a legitimate and very real possibility of happening otherwise that report does not go out make sure you check out trevor lane does a great job covering the lakers host of lakers nation trevor always great to connect you thanks so much hey thanks so much for having me on zach appreciate it you got it there he is trevor lane a lot of good insight there tired of sifting through countless supplements unsure of what's actually effective introducing legion the choice of over 800 000 discerning fitness enthusiasts with all natural products clinically effective ingredients doses and hassle-free money back guarantee you can achieve your fitness goals without the unnecessary guesswork say goodbye to wasted efforts and hello to results with legion you don't need supplements to build muscle lose fat or get healthy but the right ones can help visit legionathletics.com go to legionathletics.com to get 20 off your order now this episode is brought to you by progressive insurance whether you love true crime or comedy celebrity interviews or news you call the shots on what's in your podcast queue and guess what now you can call them on your auto insurance too with the name your price tool from progressive it works just the way it sounds you tell progressive how much you want to pay for car insurance and they'll show you coverage options that fit your budget get your quote today at progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust progressive progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates price and coverage match limited by state law here's why april chose to vaccinate her child i think actually meeting someone who was not vaccinated and now has a lifelong struggle with a childhood disease really cemented for me that it's super important that we as parents continue to vaccinate our children talk to your pediatrician or visit yvaccines.com brought to you by Merck