SOUTHINGTON — The mere mention of the large, gray, trunked mammoth that wandered into the banquet room was enough for Dan Hurley to cringe.
Addressed more directly, he just waved it off. “Not another summer of that,” he said, as the dais was breaking up.
That should be enough to calm any fears that Hurley would entertain the possibility of leaving UConn and coaching the Knicks, who fired coach Tom Thibodeau a few hours before Hurley arrived at the Aqua Turf Club, where his wife, Andrea, received the St. Clare Award at the Franciscan Sports Banquet in recognition of her community service.
Her service included time spent volunteering at places like Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, but for many in Connecticut, her greatest public service was in drawing a line along the East Coast to fend off the Lakers’ efforts to poach her husband last June. The Knicks, New York City, Madison Square Garden are on this side of that line, and there could always be tire kicking, but the very fact the job is open is every reason Hurley most likely would not want it; should not want it.
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The safe topic for Dan Hurley Tuesday night was the stacked, complete UConn roster he has built to shoot for a third NCAA championship in four years.
“Two days into practice, not everyone is on campus, but we’re thrilled with the way we’ve been able to put it together,” Hurley said on his way out of the ballroom. “Keeping the critical sophomore class together, keeping A.K (Alex Karaban), Tarris (Reed Jr.), too, those were big for us and then to address point guard in a major way, a big need area.”
Thibodeau, a New Britain guy, just led the Knicks to their most successful season in 25 years, ending with a loss to the Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals. Old narratives die hard in New York, and though Thibs took his dream job after the Knicks’ long succession of failed approaches and forgettable seasons and dragged them back to respectability and relevance, he never could beat the rap that he overworked his star players.
Kenny Smith’s quip on TV: “Thibodeau wouldn’t play nine guys in a baseball game” went in like a dagger as the Knicks were dropping the series. Nor could Thibodeau overcome the perception that, with the Celtics gone, the NBA Finals were gettable if he used players differently, and at age 67, he was facing the notion that he was stuck in the past and could only take a team so far.
So James Dolan made the move, fired the Buck Showalter; now he’d better stumble onto a Joe Torre. Assuming the Knicks are determined to win a championship next year with this core of players: Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, et al., the play would be for them to bring in an established NBA coach, like Michael Malone, Mike Budenholzer, Mike Brown or Jeff Van Gundy, if any of them believes a mythical championship window is open. If only there were a Hall of Fame coach with New York pizzazz, a win-now mentality, already under the Knicks’ nose … who might still regret leaving them 40 years ago. Too much to ponder.
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Dan Hurley would be a coaching hire for an NBA team looking to blow things up and start over, with patience for a new process, not the Knicks, not now. Hurley, 52, with two national championships under his belt, is smart enough to identify a minefield without driving into it. He also knows who he is. If he wants to coach in the NBA, he’s smart and skilled enough to adjust his coaching style to fit, but could he ever be happy doing so?
All of that will probably be moot in a day or two. The Knicks would not have made this move without knowing who they wanted the next coach to be, and that he was anxious to accept, would they? With most of his players on campus, a couple of workouts under the coach’s belt, Hurley is all in — like the Lakers’ pitch, this would come at the wrong time of year — and he seems a bit more calm (by his standards) than a year ago, when “three-peat” was everyone’s obsession, especially his.
Hurley, one year into the six-year, $50 million contract he signed after turning down the Lakers, and his staff are now able to do what college coaches couldn’t do before: Target experienced players to fill complementary roles like a pro team, a back-up point guard, a third-string center, players willing to give up minutes for a chance to be part of a championship chase. With the recent official additions of Dwayne Koroma, Jacob Ross and Alec Millender, UConn’s roster has 14 players, enough for a baseball lineup and a half.
“It’s trial and error because it’s a completely different time,” Hurley said, on his way out of the Aqua Turf. “With the back-to-back championship teams, those teams were built over years together with supplementing with the transfer portal. Now you’re trying to find that balance, because there’s a lot of value in retention, because retention with really good players is the best thing you can do. To be able to surround a blue chip freshman or two with really good players in retention and use the portal to fill important gaps and not have a total mercenary team every year. Hopefully, you don’t have to do that.”
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Hurley and his staff gathered the resources to keep Solo Ball, Jaylin Stewart and Reed out of the transfer portal and pull Karaban out of the NBA Draft. They lost one recruit, Darius Adams, when they brought in point guards Silas Demary Jr. and Malachi Smith, then added Millender for backcourt depth. The incoming class includes Braylon Mullns, the blue-chipper replacing one-and-done Liam McNeeley, plus Jacob Furphy and Eric Reibe.
“You’re weighing everything, you’re weighing every move you make,” Hurley said. “If I take thisplayer, is it going to trigger multiple players to leave and go in the portal. There are so many decisions you’ve got to make and everything has got to be thought out. Right now we’re thinking about next year’s roster and who are the high school players who can potentially start, potentially be in the rotation, potentially be developed.”
It’s a chess game, and Hurley looks and sounds more and more comfortable playing it. Why would a college coach with such job security, such attachment to players to whom he has committed, walk away from what he has built in June to go to a place with unrealistic, short-term expectations? One can only imagine the stubborn narratives that would follow Hurley, who joked about his combustibility in introducing his wife, in New York.
So the best guess here is, stop spreading the news, don’t even start.
Originally Published: June 4, 2025 at 9:43 AM EDT
