John Fanta, College Basketball on FOX Reporter

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They're really good at numbers. AutoTrader. All right, we're back. It is the Infinity Sports Network, and it is the Zach Gelb show where you're going to reconnect with John Fanta of Fox Sports, who's been all over this Danny Hurley situation as we are in waiting for him to come back.

All right, we're back. It is the Infinity Sports Network, and it is the Zach Gelb show where you're going to reconnect with John Fanta of Fox Sports, who's been all over this Danny Hurley situation as we are in waiting mode to see if Danny Hurley is going to take the Lakers gig when Fanta was on with this last out of nowhere. He just dropped right off the screen.

So I three guesses. The Uber driver punched him and was like, I don't want to hear any more of these stupid basketball takes. Danny Hurley called him to say he was taking the Lakers job or his phone died. What was it, Fanta? Number three, Zach, my phone died.

You know what's funny? The minute we went to break, I said to my producer, Mike, I go, I bet you his phone died because I don't think you sleep. Especially when you have news like this, and I know how you are and how much you love the game and you love the coverage of the sport.

I just don't think it's physically possible for you to get much sleep right now as you're waiting and waiting, waiting to see if this news does break. Well, not to mention, and your viewers can appreciate this, that as you look behind me, there's a there's a bucket there behind me near the window for the house. So I planned my wife and I planned this window to move into a new house. We thought that this would be a good window to do this.

And of course, this story has caused a whole lot of chaos in the Fanta household for a variety of reasons. So balancing a move in beautiful New Jersey and covering Dan Hurley and the Lakers. So, yes, now we can resume. My phone is back up and running and I am coming to you from a paint renovation job. I'm actually a little bit disappointed that you're moving because I always loved when you would do these interviews and you had a little basketball hoop behind you. Is the basketball hoop still around?

That's my question. It's going to make the trip. It'll be in the it'll be in the moving truck right now. It's packed away. All right.

That's very important. John Fanta here with us. So here's what I'm at with the Hurley situation. And I read your reporting and you've made it clear that UConn made Dan Hurley an offer a little bit ago that would make him one of the highest paid coaches in college basketball. If there's not a problem with administration or something else and it's say the money's there and he just hasn't signed it yet. That makes me think that he's off to L.A. and he's going to take the Lakers job.

How about yourself? I do think that if I was a betting man and I'm not, but if I was voting on this, I would say that Dan Hurley is going to be the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. Look at it this way. He has maxed out at the college level, right? He's done all that he can short of John Wooden, which is that I think UConn's preseason standing heading into next year. To be real with you is based more on the past couple of seasons and giving them the benefit of the doubt that what they actually have. I don't think they're a national championship team next year. I think there are great team.

I just wouldn't put them if I were to name four teams in the title tier, I probably look foolish. But I just think he he looks at that writing. I think that he looks at Dan is wired differently. He is a different type of guy. You talk to anybody and they'll tell you that in a good way. But he wants the next challenge.

I talk to people within UConn's athletics community that are closely aligned with men's basketball. They told me he's always thinking about the next thing. Well, for him, Zach.

Yeah, you want to run it back. I get it. But when the next thing could be the head coach of the L.A. Lakers writing a chapter in LeBron James, you know, someday LeBron's last dance documentary is going to come out. Dan Hurley, you can't tell me he doesn't think about the allure of potentially being a part of that. And we could all say we don't know if it fits.

We don't know if it works. You think Dan Hurley saying that to himself? No, he bets on himself. He's betting on himself that this is the right move. Can you say no and stomach saying no to nine figures?

I have it on good authority. The Lakers are offering at least one hundred million dollars guarantee to Dan Hurley. I mean, you're talking about at least one hundred million. You're talking about LeBron James and Anthony Davis.

Set them aside. Let's just say there's a world where they don't play. In fact, I think LeBron and not being on this upcoming year's Lakers team helps the Lakers long term in terms of winning a championship. But that's neither here nor there. Well, the LeBron or AD are part of the equation or not. Jeannie Buss and Rob Palinko are going to constantly go for it as my wife comes through, as we do this paint job for life.

Honey, that's OK. That's all right. This is this is a situation where where they're always contending. They're always going to be contending at the top of the NBA in terms of their philosophy.

All of these pros, because Zach. There's not a guarantee. There's guarantees that other NBA teams might call Dan Hurley, but the Orlando Magic and the Indiana Pacers and the Cleveland Cavaliers don't have the same alert factor that the L.A. Lakers have the same money, the same everything. If the worst thing happens and this doesn't work out, Zach L. Hurley goes back to college and gets whatever job he wants. Yeah.

So so here's the thing. If he doesn't take the job because you have it on good authority, this one hundred million dollar offer. I already thought before I heard that I thought maybe it would be a six year deal.

Eighty million dollars. That's what I was. I was kind of thinking. But yeah, and maybe and maybe that's maybe it's it's something like that with some incentives added to it.

But it's in that it's in that neighborhood. Like, let's let's look at it that way. But but I thought he would take that and go to Lakers if he doesn't take it. Why wouldn't he be the next Lakers coach? Why would he say no to this? Jeannie Buston rock link are in that meeting room right now. He and Andrea, his wife, are asking some questions.

He's asking questions about how much control he would have. He's finding out if Brian James is literally part of this deal, which I think is possible. I think that LeBron James is attracted to Dan Hurley and Luke Murray, or at least right hand man, their ability to develop kids. Bronnie James is a kid.

I want to be as clear as possible. I hope it works out incredibly well. But the coverage around Bronnie James, Zach, in my humble opinion, has been disgusting. I agree.

It's it's disgusting. You have people that are inventing narratives and that are flat out lying and are setting very, very, very unfair expectations for an 18 year old kid that are not right and not fair because he's LeBron James's son. Bronnie James should be in college. He should be in an Atlantic 10 program, you know, or maybe a Big East program. He should be playing at that around that level as a role guy on a team getting better and better and maybe getting a shot.

He should have came back and transferred to Duquesne. That's what I thought. Would you rejoice the point with that connection?

One hundred percent. This notion that he's going to appear in NBA games is not true. But the notion that he could be in the G League program with South Bay, with the South Bay Lakers, who practice in the same facility as the L.A. Lakers, UCLA Training and Health Center. That to me means LeBron wants someone to take care of his son. Is Danny OK with that?

Is he OK with the package deal? This comes down to Danny's list of demands getting mostly met. I think he could sacrifice a couple of things than pushing back on. But I think the narrative is LeBron has total control of the Lakers.

And the narrative is fair because that's what's happened in the past with organizations. But are you willing if you're Dan Hurley, are you willing to sacrifice, let's just say, two years of LeBron James if he has control of the organization, per se? But you're told by the Lakers brass, you know what, you're still going to be the long term option here.

This is what you're going to be making. And you will have control if he has some level of control. I think he takes it.

If they come back and say to him, you're going to have no control. Dan, you're the head coach. We're paying you this. We'll tell you what to do. There's a world where I think you don't mess with happy. A guy who's gone through some mental health battles like Dan's been very outspoken about that, where he says, you know what? I'm going to get you kind of increase my deal. Let's just throw it out there. Eight, nine million, if not 10 million a year, I'll make incentives.

I'm not going to mess with happy. I'll go try to be John Wooden in college, because that's what he thought about with college. He has a picture of John Wooden in his office. He wants to be college basketball's modern John Wooden.

You could say that's crazy, but that's how this guy's wired. John Fanta here with us. So let me ask you this, John. When you just go through, and I read your article, it was a great article, and you talked about how UConn made him an offer that would make him one of the highest paid coaches in college basketball. I could ask, why didn't he sign that? And you could easily say, okay, because this Lakers possibility is out there, and this is legit, as we've seen. But is there something more to that? Is he happy with the money that they offered him? Is there a problem with the administration?

Is there anything out there why he has not signed it, other than, hey, this Lakers job ended up becoming available? Call from mom. Answer it.

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Go to TuneIn.com or download the Tune In app to start listening. So this is the million dollar question. And I'm going to start my answer by saying we really don't know the exact answer to the question. OK. I have asked people around the situation, around the Hurley contract situation, people very close to it. You know, some off the record questions.

And Zach, even their answers to me have been a bit blurry. To me, this is what my interpretation of the situation is. This is my interpretation. Hurley receives a contract offer from Connecticut after the season ends. Shortly after their second straight national championship season ends.

That offer is very lucrative. Making Hurley one of the three or four, three or four was what I was told, highest paid coaches in college basketball. Now, there are people out there who instantly say, and I'm sure there's commenters right now who are saying give them all the money in the world, make them number one. Zach, here is what UConn is battling.

And there's there's there's two sides of this. One, they are a state school. The football program is drowning. Right. They're in a very difficult spot. They don't have a conference.

This is not Alabama football or Kentucky basketball. There are millions of dollars in debt already. This contract would add to the debt.

You and I both know this. I know the casual sports fan would would would scoff at this. But when you have a state university, state employees in the state government and you put out the details of this contract because it's freedom of information, this isn't some private school that's going to make political things happen. That's going to cause some people to scoff and say nobody's worth what what they are putting on the table for him. That that won some of the politics at play. I think have caused things to not get done with this with this deal, not get formalized. But based on what I know about what Hurley was offered. Really, no reason for him not to agree to it, to be candidly honest with you. So to me, him not agreeing to it inclines that maybe there's always been some light dialog.

And I think a key part of this based on people that I talk with in the industry is that at a certain point. A Lakers player or two or three, not named LeBron James, said, you know, I like JJ Redick, but I don't know if I love this smartest guy in the room. I'm going to talk down. I'm going to talk at you.

I know it all type thing when I've played against him. And I kind of like I get it, but I don't. I think that that thing caused Rob Palenka and Jeannie Buss to reopen the door. And all of a sudden, when they started to ask again about Hurley, what was he's mildly interested, became he's interested and he wants to talk. And was just a big part of that. And I just wonder, like, I'm sure the Lakers reach out to woes, said, is he interested?

Or maybe someone Laker said, hey, you may want to check in with Danny Hurley because we've been talking to him because they wanted this story out there for whatever the reasons were. You know, I think there's some level of truth I would imagine to that and was a big piece in that. He is the piece in it.

And I want to make this clear. I respect the heck out of Adrian Wojnarowski. He is the standard news breaker in sports.

That's not a political statement by me. It's not to puff him up. Woj is the best at what he does. But I do quite literally think that the Lakers talk with Woj about any other candidates. Woj has a personal relationship with Dan Hurley, with his father, Bob Senior and his brother, Bobby. Woj floated it to Dan and his people and got back.

Yeah, he's interested. So this is this is happening in real time right now. The money, the brand, all of that is real.

One thing I would push back to things I would push back on that. Number one, some of the reporting out there, this tells me that that Woj is talking to directly to, you know, directly to Dan. If you've heard some of the reporting, the reporting is that, you know, UConn doesn't play in the Big Ten or SEC or Big 12. They're dealing with with with Big East and the Big East doesn't have football dollars and this revenue sharing and lack of football TV money, which very ironically, Zach, the Big East is squarely in TV renewal negotiations. As we are talking, as this is also happening and we both know UConn's brand matters in those negotiations. But this whole notion that that there's not enough money, Connecticut's making more than enough money to happen for UConn to continue to be at the mountaintop. UConn's different than Villanova, Georgetown, St. John, Seton Hall, Providence, their state school that has big time money that will commit to basketball. They just gave Geno Auriemma a max deal at his age, a huge deal.

Let's face it, that was a that was a massive deal. The other thing is this, you know, this notion that Hurley would be leaving UConn. Would be leaving the college game because the volatility of college basketball, with all due respect, is a bunch of bull.

There's nothing volatile in Storrs, Connecticut. Palace basketball is going through a chaotic time. You don't think NIL and transfer portal plays a role in this? I don't. OK. No, I don't.

I really don't. This is the Lakers. If the Cavaliers have an opening. If the Cavs called Dan Hurley, he would hang up the phone. You're probably right. So so my point is, like, if that were the case, if your argument was the case, then he'd be going to the NBA regardless. And he's not. I think he would take three NBA coaching jobs.

The Lakers, the Celtics or the Knicks. Yeah, you're probably right in that. Like, I do think it's easier now lifestyle to be a pro coach than it is college.

But yeah, the Cavs came calling. I don't think he's he he's leaving. So last thing I'll ask you as we wrap it up with John Fanta, I'm at an 85 percent confidence that Hurley is taking this job. What number are you at right now that he's the next Lakers coach? Seventy five. Seventy five percent.

The remaining twenty five because of what I know with with what you can situationally can put together. You know, if he's a little bit uncomfortable with L.A. His dad is in Jersey City. His parents have lived in the same Jersey City home forever.

Forever. Pops might have Bobby in Arizona State. But if you ask the family, Bob, senior C and Dan, a Yukon, a heck of a lot more than he's going out to Tempe to see Bobby. Let's face it. Do they have enough money to move the family and do all that? Of course. Of course.

Of course. But, you know, you've got a son on Wall Street. Dan Junior is a Seton Hall grad, works on Wall Street, works in New York City. You've got another son in Andrew who could follow you to the Lakers. This family's been attached to the Northeast for five decades, six decades.

We're talking about, you know, a half century. The Hurleys have been attached to this part of the country where I'm talking to you now. That 25 percent just says, you know, there's there's there's so many variables at places, the Lakers, that there could be more cons to Hurley's life and do his wife's life. That his wife says, Dan, we're going back to Connecticut.

You're going for a three P and we're going to we're not messing with happy because of how much it took us to get there. If he does leave, Kamani Young is the next coach. That would be my first guess. That is my take. You know.

As somebody told me that that's around stores that, you know, that has some some clout there in some of the decision making. All it takes is one. All it takes is one name to be interested on the outside for them to reconsider.

But if you're not going to elevate somebody in the family now who's deserving, when are you ever going to do it? Number one and two, all these other coaches have fielded their rosters like people don't understand this. These players on these other teams, Alabama, Texas, Duke, Kentucky, Arkansas, they're on their campuses. They're going to class. They've enrolled. They're in practice. The twenty twenty four twenty five season has started for these teams.

We're not thinking about it. But all these teams, they're starting their road to March now. All these rosters have been built.

The NIL cash is going to get distributed. So if you go and hire an outsider who's available even to field a roster and you don't want to lose. You kind of the top 10 roster on paper in college basketball right now.

Do you want to lose pieces of that? But the other thing is, if those kids were to enter the transfer portal, Zach, which if Hurley leaves, they have 30 days to do so. Where are they going right now in college basketball? Once a kid commits, there are other kids on the team that see him commit. And they've been going elsewhere the last two months. They don't want to compete for a role. They want their cash. They want to know what their role is on the team.

You've got to keep that aligned if you're Yukon. You built your roster. I only wonder what Alex Caravan is thinking right now because Hurley got him to come back. You elevate Kimani Young.

That's what I think that they will do. Or Luke Murray if Kimani does not want it for some reason. He is John Fanta. John, good luck on the move and good luck on the on the search with Dan Hurley, because I know this is going to be a wild next few days. Thanks for doing this. Thank you, Zach.

Appreciate it. We'll be right back. There's joy in every journey. After the end of a good fight, you deserve an ice cold reward. Medela, the mark of a fighter. You've earned this rich golden lager with a crisp, refreshing taste. Because you know the bigger the fight, the better the reward. You put in the hours, the energy, the tough labor. You are a fighter. Medela is your reward. Medela, the mark of a fighter.