Shams: Dan Hurley was not Lakers No. 1 choice, contract seen as ‘hail mary offer’ around league

The Lakers are at the middle of a proxy war between league insiders as the latest report contradicts many previous reports about the Lakers and Dan Hurley.

Usually, we get to at least free agency before the Lakers become the center of a proxy war between reporters. That’s not the case this year, though, as the team’s search for a head coach appears ample enough of a space to launch that battle already.

First, let’s look at the latest. After remaining eerily silent throughout the Lakers’ weekend pursuit of Dan Hurley, Shams Charania of The Athletic appeared on FanDuel TV’s “Run It Back” on Tuesday and talked about everything that transpired for the purple and gold.

While there was a good amount discussed by Charania, here’s a transcript of the part we really care about. One note is that Shams mentions staying on UConn for $20 million less and while that may be something he’s heard or reported during the show, it wasn’t something previously reported:

“He was not the No. 1 candidate, the No. 1 guy to go pursue from the start, from the beginning. But they felt like there was an opening there for him. He was in contract negotiations with UConn. He was discussing a deal to go back and they felt like there was an opening and they threw what really people around the league believe was a hail mary offer at him. Six years, $70 million. At the end of the day, Dan Hurley chose not to leave. He chose to stay for $20 million less at UConn. [UConn] did go up significantly from his current deal but it is $20 million less...It does beg the question around the league ‘Was there genuine interest? Was there a genuine process with this? Or was this simply about leverage?’”

Why is this notable? Well, this contradicts a lot of what was reported by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN. According to Woj, Hurley was the team’s No. 1 option from the start of the process. Their offer was enticing and Hurley viewed it as a “once in a lifetime” deal.

To be clear, given how close Woj is to Hurley's family — he wrote a book on Dan’s father many years ago — it’s very likely that everything he reported is both accurate and very close to, if not straight from, the source.

The Lakers’ push for him this weekend was real. Setting aside any other motives, you don’t bring a candidate into your facility, pitch him what the Lakers did, offer him the contract they did and not feel comfortable with him leading your team and franchise.

However, as I discussed more at length on Monday, there are some things here that don’t add up. Hurley was the top target, but everything went under the radar until just days before he made his decision. Does that not raise some eyebrows?

The truth, as is always the case, is somewhere in the middle. For example, I do not think the Lakers’ interest in Hurley surfaced only very recently and they cobbled together a “hail mary” offer but I also do not think he has always been the team’s No. 1 option and they’ve simply been slow playing this whole thing waiting on him.

What is clear, whether it was intentional or not, is that the Lakers were used as leverage here. Hurley came away from this with a bigger contract offer than he had from UConn and the Lakers are still without a head coach.

How they got from without a head coach to having the interest of Hurley to without a head coach, though, is a path we don’t know and the reporting isn’t going to do much to offer clarity on that matter, it seems.

You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.