How the Lakers’ coaching search turned embarrassing; Panthers take 2-0 series lead with a dominant Game 2 win

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🏀 Good morning to everybody, however particularly to …

THE UCONN HUSKIES

The very best coach in males’s school basketball is not going wherever, and neither is his two-time reigning-champion program. Dan Hurley spurned a reported six-year, $70 million offer from the Lakers to remain at UConn.

Hurley emerged as the highest contender for Los Angeles’ emptiness final week, and we spilled loads of (digital) ink on why he’d be a great fit with the Lakers due to his artistic, fashionable offense. He calls for excellence and will get it.

He will proceed getting it at UConn, making UConn an obvious “winner” in our winners and losers column. The Huskies — in search of the primary three-peat since 1967-73 UCLA — have a powerful group for Hurley to guide.

• Alex Karaban returned after testing NBA Draft waters.
• Hassan Diarra and Samson Johnson had been key function gamers on final 12 months’s group, and Solomon Ball and Jaylin Stewart ought to step up.
• UConn added key transfers Aidan Mahaney (Saint Mary’s) and Tarris Reed (Michigan), ranked fortieth and eightieth, respectively, in Kyle Boone’s transfer portal rankings.
• Liam McNeeley, Ahmad Nowell and Isaiah Abraham are incoming freshmen. All three had been top-100 recruits per 247Sports, with McNeeley, a late addition, ranked tenth.

Gary Parrish says Hurley made the right decision. It is an enormous win for faculty basketball — superstars staying put is all the time good for a league, and Hurley is a celebrity coach — and I can not wait to see what Hurley and his group have in retailer.

👍 Honorable mentions

🏀 And never such morning for …

THE LOS ANGELES LAKERS

In dropping out on Hurley, the Lakers embarrassed themselves twofold.

The primary failure is the numbers hooked up to the headline. Six years and $70 million? It is a huge provide till you understand Erik Spoelstra obtained eight years and $120 million from the Warmth. Steve Kerr, Gregg Popovich and Ty Lue all make extra per 12 months than the Lakers supplied Hurley. Heck, even the Pistons — the Pistons! — gave Monty Williams a fatter deal.

The Lakers are value greater than double the Pistons, in response to Forbes. And so they’ve shelled out earlier than. Phil Jackson was a top-paid coach. Los Angeles was prepared to pay Mike Krzyzewski and, earlier than that, Jerry Tarkanian prime greenback.

Now? This low-ball offer proves what’s wrong with the league’s marquee franchise, Sam Quinn writes.

• Quinn: “There is no such thing as a world wherein their model of an all-in provide for a head coach must be smaller than Detroit’s. That it was exhibits why Hurley was most likely proper to cross on this job. The Lakers both do not perceive or are willfully ignoring the league’s present teaching market. In the event that they weren’t prepared to pay Hurley market-rate, would they’ve shelled out for prime assistants? Would they’ve paid for the infrastructure it could have taken for him to implement his whole program?”

The second failure is with the Lakers’ search as a complete. Earlier than the Hurley bombshell, the reported frontrunner was JJ Redick, a former participant who has by no means coached. So what is the path? What is the plan? It’s clear they have neither, Invoice Reiter opines.

• Reiter: “The Lakers appear as a substitute to be working as if hiring an NBA head coach is like scrolling by means of Netflix for a film on a Friday night time. A ‘let’s simply see what grabs us’ is not precisely a sound solution to run an NBA group. There are penalties for this sort of slipshod, public, throw-it-against-the-wall-and-see-if-it-sticks method.”

Does Los Angeles sheepishly circle again to Redick? Pursue James Borrego, who might have loads of suitors? Jasmyn Wimbish has the latest on a whirlwind coaching search.

👎 Not so honorable mentions

🏒 Panthers take 2-0 Stanley Cup Remaining lead behind unlikely hero

The Oilers could not beat Sergei Bobrovsky on any of their 32 photographs on aim in Sport 1, so when Mattias Ekholm scored on Edmonton’s first try heading in the right direction in Sport 2, issues had been wanting up.

As a substitute, that was Edmonton’s high-water mark. For a second straight recreation, the Panthers stifled the Oilers’ assault and obtained loads of offense, winning 4-1 to take a 2-0 series lead.

• Niko Mikkola tied issues within the second interval. Moments after practically placing the puck in his personal internet, Mikkola fired previous Stuart Skinner on the push for simply his second aim of the playoffs.
• Then got here the Evan Rodrigues present within the third interval. First, he regained possession deep in Florida’s offensive zone, and his deflected shot beat Skinner stick facet to provide the hosts the lead.
• He doubled the lead 9 minutes afterward the facility play with a terrific redirect. It snapped Edmonton’s streak of 34 consecutive energy performs killed.
• Rodrigues now has three objectives within the Stanley Cup Remaining. He had three within the Panthers’ prior 17 postseason video games.
• Aaron Ekblad supplied an empty-netter to provide Florida its second straight three-goal win.

The Panthers are the fifty fifth group to take a 2-0 Stanley Cup Remaining lead. Of the earlier 54, 49 have lifted the Cup. Issues are wanting good for the Panthers forward of their lengthy flight to Edmonton.

⛳ U.S. Open storylines, sleepers, extra

Scottie Scheffler is the story going into the U.S. Open. He has received 5 of his final eight begins. He is doing stuff that hasn’t been achieved in a long time. He is the overwhelming favorite.

However as Kyle Porter writes in his prime storylines, don’t sleep on some of the world’s best not named Scheffler.

• Porter: “It is Collin Morikawa — not Scheffler, nor Xander Schauffele nor Rory McIlroy nor anybody else — who has been within the remaining pairing on Sunday at each the Masters and the PGA Championship to this point this 12 months. In principle, the U.S. Open must be the key he performs the most effective, too. …  If Morikawa has been forgotten, Brooks Koepka is barely remembered. Koepka’s finishes on the final six U.S. Opens wherein he is performed appear to be this: Win, Win, 2nd, T4, fifty fifth, T17.”

Patrick McDonald, in the meantime, has some deeper sleepers in addition to nine golfers you should root for. One participant makes each lists.

• McDonald: “Sahith Theegala — Taking part in within the penultimate pairing Sunday, the free-swinging proper hander skilled his first style of main competition earlier than falling off the tempo to a T12 end. A pleasant consequence at Memorial has set the stage for Theegala’s arrival at Pinehurst the place his creativity and shot making ought to enable him to get within the combine.”

Lastly, Kyle breaks down five things to know about Pinehurst No. 2, which he says “has stood the take a look at of time and stays one of many crown jewels on this nation.”

⚽ Golazo 100: Ageing stars spotlight No. 40-21

We’re nearing the highest of our Golazo 100 countdown. We hit on players ranked 40th to 21st Monday, with some getting older stars exhibiting they nonetheless obtained it.

• 40. Luka Modric, midfield, Actual Madrid — “Modric is used sparingly by Carlo Ancelotti in La Liga, however within the UCL his means to alter video games can nonetheless turn out to be useful.”
• 36. Cristiano Ronaldo, ahead, Al-Nassr — “A 35-goal league season in Saudi Arabia helps and will tee him up properly to play a extra significant function with the Portuguese in Germany than he did on the FIFA 2022 World Cup.”
• 22. Toni Kroos, midfield, Actual Madrid — “Kroos delivered one masterclass after one other over the course of the 2023-24 season … He’ll simply go down as one in all his technology’s finest gamers, and can be missed.”

There’s loads of younger expertise, too (on this considerably biased author’s opinion, Cole Palmer is underrated, even at thirtieth), and James Benge wrote on players who could crack next year’s top 100, together with …

• Benge: “Warren Zaire-Emery, Paris Saint-Germain — It might sound too early for the French group to make room for an 18-year-old, however a lot the identical was mentioned when Zaire-Emery was breaking into the Paris Saint-Germain group, the teen firmly establishing himself as an answer for what had been the champions nice downside place for thus lengthy.“

📺 What we’re watching Tuesday

⚾ Phillies at Purple Sox, 7:10 p.m. on TBS
🏀 Lynx at Aces, 10 p.m. on NBA TV