The long, bleak history of college coaches in the NBA
ESPN reports that the Los Angeles Lakers want UConn's Dan Hurley to be their head coach. History says that's a bad idea.
Big news in the NBA: ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski is reporting that the Los Angeles Lakers are “targeting” UConn head coach Dan Hurley with a massive offer to become the team’s next head coach.
On Thursday morning, Wojnarowski indicated that Hurley’s been the Lakers guy “since Day 1” of the coaching search because they value his player development and the idea of building “a program” at the NBA level.
We’ve heard that before. History has not taken kindly to the loud college coach in NBA ranks. For the Lakers sake, let’s hope it goes better than all the other organizations in NBA history that wanted to build a college-like program at the pro level.
Hurley, who won two NCAA championships at UConn, may indeed work out (if he’s hired at all). But he would be the exception to the rule.
Let’s look at the history of college coaches that jumped straight to the NBA. I’m not talking about the Quin Snyders of the world who coached at the NCAA level and then became a longtime NBA assistant coach before getting the lead job.
We’re looking at college coaches who left their university to immediately become the head coach of an NBA team. The program they left, the NBA team they joined and how that tenure fared. I’ve also included a quote from the NBA franchise from the press conference or introduction.
Here are 13 NBA coaches that left the college ranks to become an NBA head coach and how that went: