The Los Angeles Lakers may have been willing to pay Dan Hurley more than his current employer, but the head coach is still getting a significant raise at UConn.
After UConn won their first national championship under Hurley last year, the 51-year-old signed an extension that made him the seventh-highest paid coach in college basketball with an annual salary of $5 million. Hurley won his second consecutive title with the Huskies this past season, and he has been negotiating another new deal with the school.
According to Mike Anthony of CT Insider, Hurley’s newest contract with UConn is expected to be worth roughly $50 million over six years. That would be a raise of more than $3 million per year. A deal like that would make Hurley one of the three highest-paid coaches in the nation along with Bill Self and John Calipari. Calipari has a base salary of $7 million with Arkansas but bonuses that will likely push him higher. Self made more than $9 million at Kansas last season, according to figures from USA Today.
Hurley recently turned down one prominent college program that probably would have paid him more than UConn. He reportedly could have made more than $11 million per year with the Lakers.
One theory is that Hurley only engaged with the Lakers to strengthen his stance in contract negotiations at UConn, though he had a fiery response to that narrative on Thursday.
