Lakers fans call out team for lowballing Dan Hurley

The Los Angeles Lakers‘ aura is fading by the day. After firing former head coach Darvin Ham, UConn boss Dan Hurley turned down the team’s $70 million offer to replace him.

Laker nation is now having a large-scale meltdown on X, with many fans complaining that the team should’ve thrown more cash at the two-time NCAA champion.

“They wouldn’t go up to $100M? Welp,” former Lakers SB Nation writer Ben Rosales tweeted.

@tommyswings fired back, claiming an offer that high would be unrealistic.

“For someone who has never coached a single professional game? $11.67m AAV would have had him 5th in the league:
1. Kerr $17.5m
2. Pop $16m
3. Spo $15m
4. Monty W $13m,” he tweeted.

However, overpaying Hurley wouldn’t have harmed Los Angeles financially, as Rosales explained.

“Coaches don’t have a salary cap,” he said. “It’s less what was market and more understanding the table stakes to get a guy not looking to leave to make the hop. And if he turned that down, sure, but you had to bowl him over with something truly massive.”

Active journalists are on Rosales’ side as well. The Lakers have a track record of lowballing coaches, via CBS Sports’ Sam Quinn.

“The Lakers only offered Ty Lue three years in 2019,” Quinn tweeted. “When Frank Vogel WON THE CHAMPIONSHIP in 2020, he only got a one-year extension, and it came a year later. Now this. Idk. Either the Lakers don’t understand the modern coaching market or they choose to ignore it.”

Although a six-year, $70 million dollar contract offer isn’t small potatoes, Los Angeles’ recent coaching stretch does little to buy them benefit of the doubt in this situation. Considering Hurley’s prolific run with the Huskies, as well as the Lakers’ currently questionable roster, they had to give a historic offer to even have a remote chance at landing him.

@JustRyCole, The Athletic’s social media manager, put it simply.

“Lakers got played.”

Are people overreacting, or were the Lakers really being cheap?

The Lakers need to be more self-aware in the future