Nuggets fans should be smiling after embarrassing day for rival Lakers

For a variety of reasons and coincidences, the Nuggets and Lakers have built up a bit of a rivalry over the past few seasons. The Lakers were able to beat the Nuggets in the Western Conference Finals back in 2020 en route to a title before Denver returned the favor in 2023. The teams met again in this season’s playoffs for a bit of a rubber match that the Nuggets won comfortably.

Any teams that face each other three times in five playoffs are going to build up some natural animosity and that has certainly been the case with these two West foes. As such, most Nuggets fans likely take a bit of extra pride and pleasure in triumphing over the Lakers and sending them home in back-to-back years - both in fairly decisive fashion.

Rough offseason for the Lakers continues

So, playing on that Schadenfreude, the Nuggets have enjoyed basking in the Lakers’ recent misery that started with their playoff elimination at the hands of the Nuggets. That first-round loss quickly led to the firing of head coach Darvin Ham who is still yet to be replaced.

For the past few weeks, Shams Charania of the Athletic has been reporting that ESPN analyst JJ Redick is the favorite to land the Lakers job. But this past week, Redick’s coworker at ESPN, Adrian Wojnarowski dropped one of his patented Woj-bombs when he reported that the Lakers were targeting UConn coach Dan Hurley to be their next head man.

Hurley hails from a legendary basketball family and has won back-to-back national titles with the Huskies. The news about the Lakers came out of nowhere, but suddenly the team flew Hurley out to LA over the weekend and was rumored to be preparing a godfather offer to make him the next head coach of the Lakers.

Dan Hurley spurns Lakers head coach offer

Well, apparently the offer wasn’t good enough as Hurley turned down the Lakers on Monday, announcing he will be staying in Connecticut to vie for a third straight title. This is a sad fall from grace for the once proud Lakers. They fancy themselves one of the most iconic franchises in all of sports, but getting snubbed by a college coach is a pretty bad look.

To make matters worse, the Lakers’ offer wasn’t even that impressive, just 6 years/ $70 million. That’s a lot of money, but it would only have made Hurley the 6th highest paid coach in the league. The money, fit, and pitch of the Lakers clearly wasn’t enough to lure Hurley away and that’s a poor reflection on the prominent LA NBA franchise.

Now, as the NBA draft and free agency approaches, the Lakers are back to the drawing board. They have to tuck their tail between their legs and go back to other candidates with the knowledge out there that they have already whiffed on their main target. It’s a sad day for Laker fans, but a happy one for fans of the other 29 teams.