Lakers had an actual insane pitch to lure Dan Hurley from UConn

The Los Angeles Lakers fired head coach Darvin Ham after a disappointing 2023-24 campaign. The Lakers were a Play-In team once again and were swept in the first round of the NBA playoffs by the Denver Nuggets.

For a while, it appeared as if JJ Redick was next in line to be the Lakers' head coach, but then came the bombshell that Rob Pelinka had his eyes on UConn's head coach Dan Hurley. That made a lot of sense given the fact that Hurley just won his second straight National Championship with the Huskies.

Unfortunately, Hurley passed on the Lakers' offer, and opted to stay at UConn. The Lakers chose to hire Redick shortly thereafter. While we'll never know the specifics as to why Hurley turned them down, part of their pitch to him might have something to do with it.

Lakers used insane pitch to try and lure Dan Hurley to Los Angeles

During the second round of the NBA Draft, ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski spoke about the Lakers' recruitment of Hurley. Here's what he had to say:

Yup, you read that right. The Lakers tried to convince Hurley to come to Los Angeles, and part of their plan was for him to help develop Bronny James, who they were "always" going to take in the second round. Wow.

Sure, it sounds nice on the surface, but it'd take a lot for Bronny to turn into an impactful NBA player. Bronny came off the bench for the majority of his lone season at USC, averaging just 4.8 points per game on 36.6/26.7/67.6 splits to go along with 2.8 rebounds and 2.1 assists in 19.3 minutes per contest.

He can probably defend at an NBA level, but his offensive game appears to be nowhere near ready for the NBA. He's a player who'd benefit from staying in college for at least another year if not two as FanSided's Chris Kline noted, but he chose to enter the draft and was, indeed, selected by the Lakers.

Choosing to craft a pitch to one of the great coaches in college basketball to make the switch to your team around the player you were planning on taking with the No. 55 pick is... a choice. The Lakers have many outstanding selling points for any head coach to consider but at this point, Bronny simply is not one of them. There's a very real chance that had the Lakers not taken him, Bronny would've gone undrafted. When has there ever been a pitch that included developing a second-round pick?

Hurley ultimately turned down the Lakers' six-year, $70 million offer to remain at UConn.

Perhaps Hurley would've been interested in Bronny in college, and maybe he would've worked wonders with him had he taken the Lakers job, but in no way was he ever going to pursue the Lakers job because of Bronny's presence. That pitch simply doesn't make any sense. The Bronny inclusion in their pitch probably isn't why Hurley passed on the job, but it certainly didn't make him think harder about accepting it.