LOS ANGELES — The Lakers did not simply lose their man Monday when Dan Hurley turned down their provide to be the staff’s head coach. In addition they appear to have misplaced the thread.

That the UConn coach turned down the Lakers reported six-year, $70 million provide isn’t on its face a shock. Hurley has an opportunity to chase a 3rd straight NCAA championship, a feat not completed since John Picket 50 years in the past. The Lakers job may have been a poisoned chalice — all of the glitz and purple-and-gold glamor on the skin, however one thing a lot trickier to navigate as soon as ensconced within the precise job.

And, associated and related to the following level, there is no assure a hard-charging, no-NBA-experience rent like Hurley would match nicely with LeBron James. The King’s exacting requirements, explicit view of how his groups ought to function and choice to be a accomplice with a head coach relatively than a subordinate would have been fascinating to see with Hurley, to say the least.

No, the true shock right here is that the Lakers don’t appear to know what they’re doing or whom, precisely, they’d prefer to grow to be.

Let’s begin with the embarrassment of chasing an actual gamble — and Hurley was simply that — earlier than being spurned in such a public, slow-moving method. It makes the Lakers look small. It supplies a sheen of amateurism. It begs the query why they’d put themselves on the market like that for a university coach who did not need the job.

Hurley very nicely could have been an enormous success in Los Angeles. He’s, clearly, a confirmed winner. Scouts and front-office personnel who’ve scouted UConn’s draft prospects have been impressed with the tactical degree of these groups, significantly on the offensive finish. Perhaps Hurley would have made that precarious leap from the heights of school basketball to the far more difficult terrain of NBA head teaching with uncommon acumen.

A couple of have finished it efficiently — Brad Stevens and Billy Donovan are the checklist — however the previous doesn’t at all times predict the long run. And the longer checklist of failed school head coaches on the NBA degree left many in Boston at Video games 1 and a couple of of the NBA Finals, and colleagues in NBA workplaces across the nation, skeptical.

It is one factor to be turned down publicly. It is one other to be the Lakers — the storied Lakers — and have a university coach, any school coach, drag issues out, announce he’ll render his judgment in a day, then say, in impact, I can do higher.

Assume how JJ Redick should really feel now. The ESPN broadcaster, former participant and not-so-long-ago supposed prime candidate to be LeBron’s subsequent head coach isn’t precisely famend for his small ego. This should have stung — a public courtship of another person, out of the blue, after giving off I am going to-confirm-my-new-head-coaching-gig vibes on his podcast in what felt like 30 seconds earlier than Hurley’s emergence.

And having to go on nationwide tv each few nights and fake you hadn’t simply been dumped for another person.

Similar for James Borrego, the present New Orleans Pelicans assistant coach. Sources consider he might be provided the Cleveland Cavaliers job within the subsequent week, and he, too, was left in a wierd limbo-meets-rejection over the previous few days.

Similar for all of the candidates — these with precise NBA expertise — pressured to look at the Lakers’ failed full-court press with Hurley.

However the greatest difficulty right here, and probably the most alarming signal that this group does not have an actual plan, is the actual fact its two strongest candidates couldn’t have been extra completely different. 

Hurley would have been an funding in a imaginative and prescient of the Lakers enjoying an extended recreation: Participant growth, trying towards a post-LeBron actuality (the 39-year-old has a participant choice this summer season he is largely anticipated to say no), possibly turning what will probably be entry to 3 first-round picks later this month into the groundwork within the years forward of a staff imbued with youth as an alternative of fodder for a commerce.

Redick would sign a really completely different plan: A give attention to LeBron’s waning years and the hope and plan he stays a Laker for them (the 2 are, in any case, podcast companions), an emphasis on competing within the brief time period maybe on the expense of what is down the street, doubtless buying and selling these three first-round picks for a participant like Trae Younger or Donovan Mitchell, and going for one final blast of glory with a LeBron-Anthony Davis tandem.

These are very completely different visions, and bouncing from Redick to Hurley and, now, maybe again once more to Redick begs the query: Do the Lakers have a concrete plan?

Do they even know what they’re doing?

Effectively-run organizations determine on a imaginative and prescient, craft a plan and execute it accordingly, from the gamers they covet to the type of head coaches they search. What Houston has finished, for instance, to rebuild, is a vastly completely different plan than what the Mavs did to try to maximize this Luka-Kyrie window. 

The plan in Orlando isn’t even remotely the identical as what Phoenix requires with its quickly closing title window, which is why the Suns simply paid Mike Budenholzer big-time cash. Profitable now isn’t the identical factor as working on a multi-year timeline, and, relying on the strategy, you require completely different gamers and completely different coaches to take action.

These are difficult questions and concerns for L.A. On the one hand, LeBron continues to be LeBron, regardless of his age, and the Lakers have a well-honored historical past of leaning into its stars, even of their later years. Speaking your self into working it again with LeBron James could make sense. Then again, the West goes to be a minefield within the years forward. A rebuild, with a watch towards a couple of years from now and a plan to construct one thing lasting, if time consuming, additionally has its deserves.

The Lakers appear as an alternative to be working as if hiring an NBA head coach is like scrolling via Netflix for a film on a Friday night time. A “let’s simply see what grabs us” is not precisely a sound method to run an NBA group.

There are penalties for this sort of slipshod, public, throw-it-against-the-wall-and-see-if-it-sticks strategy. 

Think about this: Now that Hurley has publicly turned down the Lakers, what should you provide to get a candidate who can each win and, as essential in Los Angeles, win the press convention as a large enough “identify.”

And might L.A. actually afford, now, to have the unlikely however not inconceivable state of affairs unfold through which LeBron decides to go some other place?

In all probability not. Which LeBron certainly is aware of, a truth that provides him loads of leverage. 

It is fairly doable LeBron may have an excellent firmer say in who will get the gig, and that he and his new coach will push aggressively to commerce these three first-rounders for one more star in an effort to win now.

That is tremendous as a well-thought-out plan. It isn’t because the unintended penalties of getting publicly embarrassed by Hurley.

The Lakers chased a shocker in going after UConn’s man. However having been turned down by him, the most important shock of all is likely to be that the staff he finally handed on has no actual plan — nor any concept what, precisely, its imaginative and prescient is to win the times that observe.