After a dramatic cliffhanger, JJ Redick secured his Lakers head coach job. Days after the team exited the playoff, the management fired Darvin Ham. While they didn’t hire a replacement for the next two months, Redick emerged as the potential guy throughout, except for one weekend. It was when UConn’s Dan Hurley almost snatched it away before declining it. However, this sequence of events has left many scratching their head, and an exec sniffs a big camouflage.

Several reports stated that the Lakers offered a whopping $70 million contract to Dan. Importantly, he went on to sign a 6-year worth $50 million with UConn. Nevertheless, Hurley didn’t exactly reveal the reason behind his refusal, shrugging off the media, saying he had a lot of reasons to stay in Connecticut. Moreover, Hurley even hit back at the media for accusing him of using the Lakers’ offer to his advantage. The 4x NCAA Champion said, “One of the worst takes I’ve heard is that this is a leverage play by me to improve my situation at UConn.”

“I don’t need leverage here. We’ve won back-to-back national championships at this place. This was never a leverage situation for me,” Hurley said, wiping off the stain. However, Jeanie Buss has a new accusation on her. In the latest report shared by the Lakers Daily, an Eastern Conference executive, who remains anonymous, accused the Lakers of willfully misquoting their offer to Hurley. The quote read, “Hurley leaked the kind of offer it would’ve taken to hire him.”

“They knew what it was going to take and still came in well below that line. If you do that, are we sure they ever really wanted to hire him? So was JJ just always the guy?” Well, every coin has two sides. So, let’s look at the other side of the proceedings.

How did Jeanie Buss react to Dan Hurley refusing the Lakers?

When the Lakers made the huge $70 million offer to Hurley, it blew up in the NBA world. The 51-year-old coach, who was fresh off an NCAA championship, definitely seemed like the answer for the Lakers’ misery. The Athletic reported that Jeanie Buss and the front office were “highly motivated” to add Dan to the mix. However, after three long days of thinking, the Huskies coach declined the offer and decided to stay with the college.

The same report revealed that Buss was “genuinely disappointed” after the deal went out of her hands. However, the latest report from the Lakers Daily paints a completely different picture of the Lakers’ owner. Nevertheless, we’ll leave it to the Sherlocks of the hoops fanbase to find out the truth. However, legendary Coach K recently gave his perspective on why Dan refused the Lakers’ offers and stuck with UConn. Coach K had declined a Lakers coaching offer back in 2004 and remained at Duke for the rest of his career.

He said, “I think he likes that challenge and loves college and I think he really loves the East Coast… I think the commitment to the game was part of the reason that he stayed.” If that’s the actual reason, then Dan Hurley indeed loves UConn more than anything else as he refused the Lakers’ fame and $20 million extra offer to remain a coach at the amateur level.

Before leaving, do watch the Dual Threat Show hosted by BG12 where Bulldogs’ Asia Avinger details her experience with Kobe Bryant, her WNBA ROTY picks, and more in the video below.