‘Stealth candidate’ for Lakers coaching job emerges

While the Los Angeles Lakers and the rest of the basketball world eagerly await the decision of UConn basketball coach Dan Hurley, another two-time National Championship-winning head coach has suddenly emerged as what NBA insider Marc Stein calls a potential “stealth candidate” for the Lakers’ head coaching job: former Villanova head coach Jay Wright.

“I had been warned early on by one well-placed insider, for what it’s worth, to stay ready in case former Villanova coach Jay Wright emerged as a stealth candidate,” Stein reported on Sunday.

Now the wording here is admittedly a little murky. As things stand right now, there have been no discussions between Lakers management and Jay Wright (that we know of), so for the time being, it’s still seemingly a two-horse race between Dan Hurley and fifteen-year NBA veteran JJ Redick, with Hurley the heavy favorite to come away with the job. According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Hurley was 50-50 as of Sunday night. But in a scenario where Hurley turns down the Lakers reported $100 million offer, perhaps that’s when Wright gets in the mix.

Because it’s the Los Angeles Lakers we’re talking about here, essentially every big name coach on the market will inevitably be brought up as a possible candidate, and some will give the idea some legitimate thought. Remember twenty years ago, when Phil Jackson and the Lakers parted ways, it was Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski who the Lakers went after. Their pursuit ended up coming up short, but it was the only time that Coach K flirted with the idea of leaving the Blue Devils. Dan Hurley now finds himself in a similar position coming off of two consecutive National Titles, but if he were to turn the Lakers down and return to UConn, it’s reasonable to believe that somebody like Jay Wright could be lured out of retirement if the money was right.

Could Jay Wright be the Lakers’ surprising Plan C? 

The last game that Jay Wright coached was in a 2022 Final Four loss to eventual the Kansas Jayhawks, the eventual National Champions. It was the fourth Final Four that Jay Wright led the Villanova Wildcats to, and the third in his final six seasons with the team. Wright surprisingly stepped down after the loss, with assistant coach Kyle Neptune taking over the job. After making nine straight tourney appearances in Wright’s last nine seasons, Nova hasn’t gone dancing since Wright left.

You could make the case that Jay Wright leaving Villanova was one of the many dominos that needed to fall in order for UConn to ascend to the top of the Big East each of the last two seasons. Yes, Dan Hurley’s squads would’ve been powerhouses the last two years no matter if Wright was still coaching the Wildcats or not, but prior to his departure, Nova had reigned over the Big East, winning at least a share of the Big East regular season title in seven of his last ten seasons. And remember, it was following a loss to Wright’s wildcats that Hurley famously said, “You better get us now, ’cause it’s coming.”

Wright stepped away from the college game as arguably the best coach in America, and he’s stayed close to the sport since then, working for CBS as an analyst. He has coached dozens of players who have gone on to play in the NBA, and similar to Dan Hurley at UConn, helped to turn Villanova into an offensive machine on their way to two National Titles in a three year span.

If Jay Wright is the Lakers’ Plan C, then let me tell ya, that’s one hell of a Plan C.