On this episode of a heat check. Tell yes, this is exactly what I wanted. Dan Hurley did it. He made his decision and he rebuffed the Lakers and is staying in Connecticut. So yes, we bring on Lakers insider and friend of show, producer of show actually Anthony Irwin to help us make sense of it. Anthony, let's get right into it. Let's drop that motherfucking beat that should
be reON O leader. Shit. Wow, I know it's not breaking really anymore because it happened yesterday, but we've got breaking news and it has absolutely zero to do with the finals, and it's dominated the landscape of the news cycle even while the Finals were going on. No one even cares about this Boston Celtics Dallas Maverick series. I literally was walking with someone that were like, who's playing against the Celtics again, I'm like, bro, it's Luka Doncic
in the Dallas bricks. Leave it to the Los Angeles Lakers to steal the thunder from the actual games themselves. The backstory here is incredible. I won't get into it all download the last podcast because we go into it instead. I have been reached out too by multiple Laker insiders and people who are extremely close to this organization, and the picture that they are painting is just insane. I don't know what's going on inside this organization. That's the
question of the hour. There's a few things we do know. For fact Number one, the Lakers were extremely public about wanting to hire Dan Hurley, and I think I think that was like real, but they were very public about wanting them and courting them. Two, the Hurley camp leaked the number that they were looking for was eight years and one hundred million. Three the Lakers offered six years and seventy million, which is thirty million dollars short of expectation.
Monday morning, Hurley turns down the Lakers job and is now in line to become the highest paid coach in all of college basketball, which Connecticut governor came out and said today. Those are four facts, but the context of the facts are delicious. They are bonkers. I haven't done this before, but I kind of felt like it was warranted because I think that the opinions were good, and I think that they show like the kind of evolution of the opinion over time or immediate reaction to Oh,
I've got some more information let's share it. I'm gonna play the audio of my immediate reaction that I did after the news dropped. Buckle up, life comes at you fast. Oh, this is delicious, great stuff on a Monday. Not because just Dan Hurley decides to go back to Yukon and fucks the Lakers over, but because the Lakers fumbled the bang, absolute disaster situation. Not only was it a terrible fit, because let's be honest, like Rob doesn't know what he's doing,
Genie Bust doesn't know what she's doing. Linda Rambis is around. Why is she around? But we're not talking about a franchise. Is that got They got Steve Bomber money? Okay, this is a mom and pop organization and they promised him one hundred million. That was the reports. And guess what they went down to six year seventy and he was like, I think guy will go back to stores. Thank you very much. Smith said it perfectly. If this is remotely true,
it's time to sell the team. One of the premier franchises in all of sports can't be losing out on players or coaches because of money. Remember, Genie Buss only makes money from the Lakers. That there's no other source of revenue, not like Steve Balmer, not like Matt Ishbia, not like James Dolan, not like the list of other billionaires. She's by far one of the poorest owners in all of the NBA. She was not about to give them
one hundred million. Can't allow the Detroit Pistons to be able to pay a coach more than you, and a coach that doesn't even deserve the money. Oh my god, I love this so much. Oh he's a Portland fan. It's beautiful. Yeah, I love it. I do. I just say, Linda's got a weird case. Why is she around? Honestly, why is Linda Rambis always around? Anyway? So then I got some calls, like literally immediately, I got calls, Hey, I gotta tell you this, Hey gotta tell you this, Hey,
I gotta tell you this. Inside the house. The call is coming from inside the house. And the tea was so hot I had to drop an ice cube just to sip it. And there's an honest to god conspiracy theory. Not only did I get this directly, other NBA insiders were coming out of the woodworks to say basically the same thing. And you know, I love a good NBA conspiracy theory. So let's play what I had to say in terms of the story that I was being told of the saga around Dan Hurley and his courting process
by the LA Lakers. Well, the streets are talking about this whole Dan Hurley Lakers thing, and now I'm gonna bring it to you. The rumor is that the media mobster aka Woch had a multi tier plan to one take out and discredit his foe and competitor in this sport, get one of his best friends the bag, and help shape a narrative for one of his great sources, the LA Lakers, to make it look like they know what
they are doing when they definitely definitely do not. June fourth, Lakers are zeroing in on JJ Reddick as the front runner, even put out sourcing that he had already interviewed. We know there's a scoop board between Shams and Woj, and Sean's been racking up way too many ws lately. This sourcing then comes out from Woch one day later. Actually, the Lakers are zeroing in to give a massive contract
to Dan Hurley, and they have been targeting him four weeks. Okay, Dan Hurley visits the Lakers and says he was compelled and intrigued and impressed. Hurley decides to stay at Yukon after a dogged pursuit of Hurley. See this is what I'm talking about. It makes it look like the Lakers are putting on a very thorough search when we know that they have not. It been literally this idea like
four days ago. Joe Pompiano said it best. It's almost like Dan Hurley leaked all this through his friend who literally wrote a book on his dad to secure himself a bigger contract than you can. Wod gets a scoop, the Lakers get to say, hey, we tried, and Hurley gets a huge race. So along the way, Sean's looks like he's a fucking idiot when he was the one
that was right all along. Yeah, I mean, woj also, by the way, extremely desperate to cover his tracks and make it look like the whole thing was not a ruse, that it was extremely legit, and that danerally was totally enchanted by the conversations that he had when he totally definitely went to la for a real meeting, which I'm not really even sure that.
He flew out the half right like we did. Anyone see it anyway? He tweets this out as swept away. As Hurley became by the Lakers courtship and vision for him, he ultimately couldn't walk away from a chance to make history and pursue a third straight nc DOUBLEA title. Even before Lakers.
Talks, Hurley had already had a Yukon offer to become one of the highest paid NCUBLEA coaches. And those talks will continue, meaning you better give that man his money. Those talks will continue. Okay, all right, There's one thing that I want to address before we get into this interview with Anthony. This is now the third NCUBLEA championship coach that ditched the Lakers, Jerry Tarkanian in the seventies because they killed his manager, the mob, and he got spooked.
That's what happened. Actually, Coach K got cold feet and Dan Early Danny Early, which like he's a scoundrel. Wait, what he did was a masterclass in negotiating tactics. But it's the Coach K analogy that I think want I want to help illuminate how badly the Lakers fucked this up. And now I'm not saying that he really wanted it. But sometimes there's just amount of money that you say, fuck my career, fuck my legacy, I'm gonna take the biggest bag possible, and if I fail, I can go
somewhere else. I found an article from the La Times from two thousand and four July two thousand and four, the Lakers were in the midst of their coaching search and they were courting coach K. They offered coach K the Lakers did five years, forty mili eight million dollars a year, which I think is less than they offered Tylou like two years ago, which is tremendous, almost exactly twenty years ago, and that eight million dollars today would
still make you the seventh highest paid coach in the NBA. That's insane. But that's not even the real content of this. Because if you go through this economic history website that they have called how Much is that, it's a calculator. It allows you to translate the value of money at any time into American history and convert it into today's value. It's called the present value of money. You know, how much forty million dollars in two thousand and four is
worth in twenty twenty four money. It has a real dollar amount of today of sixty seven million dollars, which could equal out to thirteen point four million dollars per year, which I think is money Williams money. Maybe that's how the Detroit Pistons spenciled that out. So how the fuck did the Lakers low ball generally to the tune of eleven point sixty seven million a year when all of the rumors were that he wanted twelve point five million
dollars per year. Well, because very simply, Jerry Buss still ran that thing in two thousand and four, and now we got the Genie bus Bus now controlling things. And I believe if the Lakers offered Dan Hurley thirteen point four million dollars a year or actually just like almost any time period but an automatic guarantee hundred million, you see one hundred million, you say, sorry, babe, can't turn that down. And I think Andreas says, sorry, babe, we
can't turn that down. He's in purple and gold right now, baby, He's got lebron t shirts ready in the mail for him. As good friend of show. Keith Smith, the spow Track tweeted out today if they really did low Ballhurley after that public of according, Palinka should be fired and Genie Buss should sell the team. But instead the Lakers barely matched eleven million a year, which is, by the way, what Kentucky offered Dan. Really the Dan really immediately turned down.
They offered him the same money that he had already said was not enough to get him away from stores. And that's not even factoring in the fact that eleven million dollars in LA is not even close to eleven million dollars in Kentucky. In Kentucky, Baby Lexington. So now Dan really is staying east to pursue history. The Lakers now have to go with whatever it is that they say Plan B is. James Brego get the fuck out of here, little finger Woge returns back to ESPN to
thek his wounds. Let's be real, like, does he get a Dan Early kickback? I don't know. Will it be your book deal? Will he get paid? Who knows? All of the all of the stuff is just so delicious. Sham's has proven correct again. And then JJ Reddick when he gets off of the job after the Celtics sweep the Dallas Mavericks. Uh and then they turn him down. Then he turns them down. The Lakers are gonna have to start a square one. They will remain a dumpster fire.
It is currently three weeks before the NBA Draft, less than a month before free agency, and the Lakers have no coach, they have no plan. Bro Like, what are they doing? What's happening? Delp Us makes this. Let's turn to my man man, Anthony Irwin of the Lakers Lounge. He appeared on my show tonight at MGM Tonight, which airs from seven to eleven Eastern on the radio most major markets, as well as live on video on Twitch and YouTube. Anthony gave us so much tea. We asked
them about Lynda Ramis. We had too, So let's get into it.
It's been a very quiet day surrounding the Lakers. Obviously not much going on now. Dan Hurley turning down If you missed it, I don't know how you could have missed it at this point, turning down the Lakers offer. He's gonna stay at Yukon. He's gonna look to go to a threepeat. Anthony Irwin jumps on with US Lakers Insider for Lakers Daily, which I'm sure you've had a very quiet day yourself, Anthony, not alot go. The last time you were on here, the Lakers were looking for
a head coach. Well, here we are the Lakers are looking for a head coach again. At this point, let's just look back on the situation with Dan Hurley, from JJ Reddick to Dan Hurley. How did we get to that point? And now how are we once again still with the Lakers trying to find who their next head coach is going to be.
I think it all kind of starts and ends with the Lakers lowballing Hurley, you know, he so essentially John Fanta of Fox Sports had reported that Hurley was, you know, kind of the deal that was out there potentially was for upwards of one hundred million dollars. So I took that to some of the people who I know close to the Lakers and asked them if they thought that
the Lakers would get to that level. That was pretty clearly Hurley leaking, or Hurley's camp leaking his expectation what it would take to get him away from Yukon and get him away from that opportunity to repeat. And I was told that, yeah, the Lakers you know, obviously that's pretty steep for a rookie head coach. But the Lakers knew what game that they were playing and thought that, you know, they would make that kind of a compelling offer.
And then the reports today from Ahrian Mozarowski is that he only got an offer of six years over for seventy million bucks. And you know that's less than Monty Williams is making. You know that you got across the Monty bar. Even though Detroit screwed up by giving him that contract, you got across that Monty bar.
Yeah, it's a sad day when you can't even compete with the Detroit Pistons. I was listening to your Twitter live, your ex live yesterday and last night, deep into the night, and it's obviously been very confusing this whole saga, right, And I wonder how much of the Dan Hurley to the Lakers steam really was quote unquote weeks in the making versus a very convenient way for WOJ to dunk on Schams for leaking the report about JJ and also help get his friend paid the bag.
Yeah, there are definitely plenty of people out there who think that this was a bit of a ploy from from Hurley. One thing I'll say though, is that the Lakers were very serious. They thought that they had a shot at Hurley. How mutual that that interest was, and all of that stuff that remains to be seen. I think we're going to be learning a little bit more about that over the coming days and weeks or whatever.
But there are certainly enough people out there to where I don't think we could ignore the noise that potentially Woge got his one of his you know, closer people in the coaching circles paid. You know, he wrote a book on the Hurley family. When Hurley signed his most recent contract extension with Yukon, it was actually Wog who broke that story as well. Those ties are very very clearly there, And you know, considering everything that we had heard was JJ Reddick, It was JJ Reddick. It was
JJ Redick. It was JJ Redick. And then to all of a sudden have Hurley pop in for a hot minute and walk out with a nice little extension from Yukon too. Like it, those those circumstances and all of that noise, you can't ignore it.
Yeah, you brought up the contract like they maybe low balled them. Do you buy that he did like the vision and that he really enjoyed the meeting with and Genie Buss.
You know, it reminds me of LaMarcus Aldridge a few years back where they completely bumbled their first meeting with LaMarcus Aldridge and it was so bad that they actually called Aldridge back to have a you know, to have a do over. And you know, like nobody's gonna outright crap on the Lakers through their sourcing. Nobody's gonna come like it. They are still that marquee franchise. They do
have that amount of sway there or whatever. But like I do think that, you know, some of the compliments about it, like how how would exciting, honestly could a vision that involves two rambuses b I think that's with Frank Vogel, he was having his coaching meetings and he would randomly have Kurt Rambis storm into them when they
were interviewing ty Lu. They were asking ty if it was okay if they hired Jason Kidd to basically kind of spy on him and rolay information back to Rob Polenka, Like it's not a serious organization right now, and they don't like there's no accountability for any of this. So there's no real nothing to prove that anybody is learning anything from either of these last two coaching Hire's debacles. The low one was really was really kind of tricky and unseerious, and this one looks to be as well.
As soon as I saw that Dan Hurley said that he was impressed with the vision and impressed with Rob Polinka, I knew that was just absolutely not true and that he was not going to take the job. I do want to follow up, though, on the Rambus comment, because I don't think I've asked you this before, and we've had putting opportunities to talk about it. Why does Linda
Rambis have so much effing power in this organization? Because today, just today I heard that she's actually like a top the pecking order in terms of like Sway Juice, et cetera. Former Laker girl. Linda Rambis.
Yeah, she was actually portrayed in that Winning Time show. Yeah, that HBO did, and it really did kind of you know, it showed you gave you a little glimpse into that process and how that came to be where uh, doctor Bus basically assigned Genie Bus to Linda Rambis and the two kind of grew up through the organization together and they have known each other now for upwards of forty years.
And and uh, Genie, you know, the one thing anybody who you talk to about Genie Bus, the one thing that they say is she is she is passionately loyal to the people who have been loyal to her. And there that you can't like, there are very few people who have been more loyal to Genie Bus over the years than Linda Rambus. And so when Genie took over, Linda got a big old promotion.
She don't know anything about that.
All I can think of is that winning time and that you know, uh, I know. Obviously a lot of stuff is thrown out. There's you know, stuff to manipulate the narrative or whatever the case is. We've talked about some of that. Jay Wright, anything with that is that complete bs, there's reports out there. He's like a dark horse.
Now.
I feel like I see that. And it's just like at this point, stuff just getting thrown at the wall to see if reports stick.
That's essentially it. Everybody right now is just kind of because the thing is in all of these processes, those of us who try to relay information we get lied to. We understand what we're what we're doing. We understand that when we talk to people, we have to have our our our BS meter running and very sensitive to the possibility that maybe, just maybe somebody might not be fully honest with us, so they're trying to spin something to
their benefit or to their clients benefit or whatever. But it's really rare that people feel outright lied to in the way that I have gotten the sense people feel outright lied to this this during this process, when you went from JJ and you got you arrived somehow at Dan Hurley and now the Lakers have basically hit the reset button. A lot of people feel like they just don't have a grasp, myself included, don't really have a grasp on where this thing heads. I think James Barrego
has a possibility. His name has been there consistently from the get he has that time that he overlapped with Anthony Davis. Anthony Davis has basically I wouldn't go so far as to say he's stuck out his neck for Barrego, but he's kind of his preference or whatever. I just, you know, know, I think you're gonna get all kinds of names in the in the next week or two because the Lakers almost have to start from square one here. Their relationship with JJ Reddick isn't in a great place
right now. He's the guy you would have thought would have just been the natural person you slide over to, but it doesn't seem that that's going to be the case. Everybody right now is just kind of searching for where do they go? The Lakers themselves are searching for where they Where do they go?
Three weeks until the NBA Draft and we don't even have an idea who the head coach of this team is going to be? What an absolutely insane debacle? Are Is this like a poverty franchise? Now? Like where are we at in terms of like how close this is to an actual rebuild?
I don't know that they're I mean, you still have Lebron in the organization.
For the I mean, I guess, we don't know, We don't know.
Yeah, this is Today's the first time all off season that I thoughts on myself, Man, he could really peace out like he you know, and nobody would hold it, like hold it against him. Not a single person would would look at this situation here and see how this has played out and say, gosh, Lebron didn't prioritize winning if he was to leave, you know, like nobody would
say anything like that. And but so long as Lebron is in your organization, and so long as and the Lakers are operating as if he is going to be, you can't rebuild. You can't rebuild with a forty year old Lebron. And I don't even know what a team would give up for a forty year old Lebron given the weekend state that the Lakers are in from a
negotiating standpoint. So I think their best path forward here is to try to scramble together and hire a head coach who gives them a decent chance at winning right now, and and and then you know, approach the post Lebron era when you get there.
I know we kind of talked about this. What do you think the off season looks like now that they don't have a head coach though? Because I saw like some crazy rumors maybe about trying to get creative to land like Lowry Markinen.
Probably not gonna be able to do that. But do you think that they're gonna be able.
To make a flashy move without having a system or like anything to sell a free agent or even if you do bring over anybody in a trade, you don't know what this team's really gonna look like.
Yeah, I mean, I I think they'll have a they'll have a head coach before they get to like those those questions or whatever. But I actually think this whole debacle really increases the chance that they do go out in trade for a star. You know, try to get some attention away from how messy this is. Uh my like core principle in covering this team, and and you know, I've been doing so for about a decade now while
Rob Polinka has been in charge there. You can always bank on the Lakers doing the thing that allows Rob Polinka to continue to remain employed. And uh that right now would seem to be going out and trading for a star, and you know, doing the doing the naked gun thing where it's like everybody, please just first, nothing going on here. It's that's essentially what what trading for a star would feel like right now, and it feels a little more likely than even when when the last time we all spoke.
You know, at this point, the way we talk about the Lakers, it just feels like a team that has no direction but yet still will find a way to do something big this offseason. Like just the way you describe it there, like I feel like we can never
count them out no matter what. But even that being said, when you look at the rest of the Western Conference, doesn't just feel like no matter what they were to do, given like realistically, they're kind of still looking up at a whole bunch of teams in the West that have cores that are put together, that are younger and kind of at this point like settled in on what they're
going to look like. Yeah, I mean like they got the healthy season from Lebron and the healthy season from Anthony Davis, and both of those players were top ten to fifteen players in the NBA depending on your defection definitions thereof, and still they were in the plan, and still they were a first round exit and were not particularly competitive with the team that knocked them out again in the Denver Nuggets.
And now part of that, like I do think in this new NBA, with this new CBA that everybody is operating under parody is just you know, off the chains. It's basically Adam Silver's vision is for an NFL type league where everybody feels like they have a chance at the beginning of the year, and it all just kind
of comes down to matchups. So maybe, just maybe the Lakers do swing big and they do go out and get whether it's a third Star, or they turn Rui and or Vanderbilt or some of these other guys who have impact on one side of the ball only into players who have impacts on both sides of the ball, and they run into the right matchups for enough series in a row that they give themselves a chance in the playoffs. But you're absolutely right. The West is going to be insane next year. Memphis is going to be
healthier next season. Minnesota isn't going anywhere. Okay, see, okay, se could trade for anybody. They have one thousand first round picks to work with, and they were at the top of the conference anyway, So like it really might not matter what the Lakers do here. And then like the risk that you run is you do go all in, you trade for whoever that that third star is, you use all your picks, and you still wind up at the bottom of the conference.
I know, it's crazy. To think we're at a heart out, Anthony. We love you, really appreciate it, Anthony Irwin, Lakers Insiders for Laker Daily, it's bet.
MGM the nights, big shout out to Ante and that's all the time that we have for this episode heat Check. Thank you to Anthony and the whole bead MGM crew. Come back Friday, Friday, probably after game two, Game three, Game three, Game three and check out the feed for past episodes and many episodes which drop unexpectedly like the coaching stock of the Fever head coach Christy Sides, why are you benching your golden goose? Do not forget to
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