The Herro Injury and Veteran Extension Candidates With Sam Amick, Plus UConn Head Coach Dan Hurley

Summary

The Zach Lowe Show (9/22/2025): The Herro Injury and Veteran Extension Candidates With Sam Amick, Plus UConn Head Coach Dan Hurley

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Overview

In this episode, Zach Lowe unpacks the Miami Heat’s outlook following Tyler Herro’s injury, then dives deep into the thorny world of NBA veteran extensions and trade values with Sam Amick (The Athletic). The show rounds out with an extensive interview with Dan Hurley, head coach of UConn’s men’s basketball team, about his new book, the lure of the NBA, mental health, and pivotal moments in his career and life.

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Main Topics & Key Discussion Points

1. Tyler Herro’s Injury & Miami Heat Outlook

• Impact of Herro’s Foot Surgery: Herro is out for about eight weeks (14–15 games), which could threaten Miami’s season trajectory given their thin margin for error and past offensive struggles.
  • Zach Lowe (03:35): “Their offense was like, what, 21st, 22nd last year? He's their best offensive player. It's gonna get dicey for them.”
  • Without Herro, there are questions about shot creation, possible increased minutes for Terry Rozier, and whether prospects like rookie Yakachunas step up.
• Playoff Implications: Even a moderately slow start could spiral into “existential” questions for Miami, including the long-term core and asset management.

2. Tyler Herro as an Extension/Trade Candidate

• Extension Context: Herro is eligible for a three-year, $150M extension (Oct. 1). He has two years left on his current deal ($31M, $33M).
• Negotiation Complexity: Defensive limitations and ambiguous trade value make him a tricky extension case.
  • Sam Amick (06:51): “23, 5 and 5... one of seven players who played at least 60 games to hit those marks. But... those are somewhat hollow numbers, at least to a degree.”
  • Zach Lowe (07:04): “Only one guard... got put into more pick and rolls on defense than he did.”
• Trade Value: Lowe and Amick run through potential teams (Detroit, Toronto, Milwaukee, Charlotte, Clippers, Dallas, Minnesota), concluding none would pay a premium due to his contract and looming extension.

Memorable moment — Zach’s summary (10:52):
“It's hard to find the team that's like, oh yeah, here's three first round picks for Tyler Hero. I just don't think that deal is out there.”

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3. Around the NBA: Veteran Extension Candidates

Segment starts ~12:27

Big-Name Candidates

• Karl-Anthony Towns: Eligible for a mammoth extension, but given injury history/age and lack of urgency, unlikely now.
• Darius Garland: Three years left; likely “show-me” year for Cavs before any deal.
  • Key insight (19:18 Amick): “We're going to get closer to... MAX guys actually considered Max guys.”
• Kevin Durant: Rockets optimistic about extension, but waiting for Tar Eason’s new deal to see how finances fit.
• Nikola Jokic: No panic in Denver, but other teams are strategizing for 2027 free agency just in case.
• Draymond Green, Ja Morant, Zion Williamson: All are eligible, but no discussions likely for varying reasons (timeline, off-court issues, health).

Underrated and Situational Candidates

• Rui Hachimura (Lakers): Fits well but Lakers may wait to keep cap flexibility for future pursuits (e.g., Wiggins).
• Cam Johnson (Nuggets): Now in Denver replacing MPJ; could be an “under market” contract candidate, but team likely waits to see fit.
• Lu Dort (Thunder): Extension tempting due to his defensive value and homegrown status, but expensive relative to OKC’s tax future.
• Aaron Nesmith (Pacers) and Ayo Dosunmu (Bulls): Solid role players, could get “reasonable” numbers—worth watching.

Amick on Dort (34:38): “If I was Lou, I would wait, because... the way that it doesn't value defense unless you're Rudy Gobert.”

Extension Market Trends

• Zach Lowe’s theme: The league-wide “apron” (tax) effects are suppressing max deals and could bring more team-friendly negotiations, even for second-tier stars.

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4. Deep Dive: Trae Young’s Atlanta Extension Decision

Segment starts ~37:28

• Situation Summary: Young is eligible for a 4-year, $230M extension. He can hit UFA after 2025–26 (player option).
• Player Value and Fit:
  • Young’s defense is still poor, but Atlanta is built to hide that. His offensive value is elite (“plus-plus” playmaking).
  • Lowe highlights how the Hawks need to decide: Do you risk losing a franchise-level guard or overpay to preserve continuity?
  • “If Trey Young had mega trade value, I think he might be on another team.” (47:26)
• Beef With Pat Beverley:
  • Young’s passive-aggressive video response is a show highlight.
  • Quote (Zach, 39:15): “Trey Young... maybe the pettiest and most passive aggressive YouTube video counter argument rant at Patrick Beverley... just a masterpiece.”
• Possible Outcomes & Numbers Discussed:
  • Lowe: Would offer “four years, $180M–$190M, $45M per” now; thinks Atlanta’s position is pretty strong and team built to perform.
  • Amick: $200M maybe, but Hawks won’t max him out without major reservations.
• Bigger Picture: The Hawks are positioned to pounce on any super-elite star that wants out—specifically Giannis (agent connections, Bucks pick equity).

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5. Special Guest: Dan Hurley, UConn Head Coach

Segment starts ~53:39

On His Book: "Never Stop"

• Why Write It?:
  • Post-second national championship, pushed by agent, long-time sportswriter Ian O’Connor co-authoring.
  • For Hurley, the project is about sharing his full, human journey, not a "money grab."
  • Hurley (55:55): “I love to read... books and learning, and... I was excited about it.”
• Lakers Job Saga:
  • Hurley rebuts conspiracy theories that his NBA flirtation was a leverage play; details everything in the book about his L.A. interview, meetings with top NBA coaches, and personal doubts.
  • After L.A. traded for Luka, Hurley:
    • “...Lakers fans, you know, direct messaging you that you're the biggest moron. You know, look how stupid you are.” (59:35)
  • On possible NBA future: Not ruling it out, but feels his intensity and style fit college better (for now).

Mental Health, Coaching Philosophy, and Personal Struggle

• Early-Career Mental Health Battle:
  • Hurley describes his struggles with depression/perfectionism at Seton Hall, isolation, and the role of family, faith, and literature in recovery.
  • Hurley (77:39): “My whole life has been basketball... once I started to play, like, the levels of that, I felt like, had gotten to a pretty dark place for me.”
• Coaching Style & Reputation:
  • Intensity, anger, and passion for the game discussed frankly.
  • Admits open hypocrisy in "working the refs": at Wagner/URI accused blue bloods of favoritism, now expects those calls himself at UConn.
  • Hurley (66:01): “I've got an identity that's been very successful for me, and it's worked for me.”

Favorite Stories & Anecdotes

• Greatest Pressure Moments:
  • Winning a one-bid semi-final as a low-major coach was more stressful than a national championship game, due to the zero-sum nature.
• Biggest Messages From Book:
  • Hurley wants readers to see the real journey, not just the “success” mythos. The struggles—financial, marital, mental—were often “as bad as it could get.”

Rapid-Fire NBAs and UConn Alumni

• Donovan Clingan: Unique defensive NBA prospect—needs to seize early chances.
• Stephon Castle: Already messaging back that Wembanyama is a “freak alien.”
• On watching the 1992 Duke-Kentucky game: Still “the greatest game I’ve ever seen.”

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Key Quotes & Memorable Moments

Zach Lowe, on the Heat’s situation (03:35):
“Their offense was like, what, 21st, 22nd last year? He's their best offensive player. It's gonna get dicey for them.”

Sam Amick, on the new extension market (19:18):
“We're going to get closer to that ecosystem where, you know, the MAX guys are actually considered Max guys.”

Dan Hurley, on coaching style and anger (66:01):
“I've got an identity that's been very successful for me, and it's worked for me.”

Timestamps for Notable Segments

• 03:35: Zach and Sam break down the Herro/Heat implications
• 12:27: Veteran extension market overview begins
• 37:28: Trae Young extension deep dive, Pat Bev rant discussed
• 53:39: Dan Hurley interview begins
• 66:01–73:18: Hurley on coaching anger/hypocrisy/refs
• 77:39: Hurley on Seton Hall mental health episode
• 84:26: Hurley on Donovan Clingan & UConn pipeline
• 87:09: Reflections on Duke-Kentucky 1992 “greatest game”

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Conclusion & Episode Tone

The episode is a blend of sharp NBA analysis—often skeptical, sometimes humorous—and candid, searching conversation. Zach and Sam methodically break down the shifting extension environment and what it means for the league’s middle and upper classes. Hurley’s segment is raw, honest, and often funny, a compelling blend of hoops stories and frank thoughts on life’s hardest obstacles.

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Listen if you want:

• Smart NBA contract, trade & extension deep dives
• An entertaining, candid portrait of a championship college coach
• Stories that connect the realities of pro and college hoops, both on and off the court

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Episode guests:

• Sam Amick: Insider perspective, deep NBA contract analysis
• Dan Hurley: Inspirational personal journey, insight into the mindset of an elite coach, the pull of the NBA, and what really matters in life and sports

Transcript

[Zach Lowe]

This episode is brought to you by NBA 2K26 quick timeout. NBA 2K26 is here and it's looking sharp. New motion engine, smoother catch and shoot and rhythm shooting that actually feels natural, like real basketball flow. In my team they've added the W so you can run Nafisa Collier, Tyrese Haliburton and Tim Duncan. It's his beautiful blend of spacing IQ and quiet dominance. Mycareer is also all new. The city's more efficient and the whole thing just plays faster and smarter. NBA 2K26 is out now and it's genuinely impressive this year. If you haven't jumped in yet, now's the time. Ball over everything. Coming up on a new edition of the Zach Low Show. To start your week, we're talking Tyler heroes, injury, the Heat. How bad is this for them? Could this be a not tanking year but maybe not great year for the Heat? And we're using Tyler Herro, who's eligible for an extension starting Oct. 1, to look at some of the trickiest veteran extension candidates. Not the rookies. He has veteran extension candidates. There's some big names, some sneaky names. You got your catch, your Darius Garlands, your Trae Youngs, Kevin Durant, A.J. green, Cam Johnson. On the sneakier side, what's going to happen with all these players? Is anyone going to sign extensions among this veteran group? When? Where? How? Who? Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura. We got some Lakers discussion in there too. Then we got Dan Hurley, the head coach of University of Connecticut's men's basketball team. Six time he corrected me. I said five time. Six time national champions twice under him failed in their bid for a 3P. We get into everything, including the Lakers thing. Was it real? How real was it? He just wrote a book where he details all this. We're going to talk about the book that he wrote with Ian O', Connor, all things UConn, his alumni in the NBA and one thing we are not going to talk about today is the sad sack New York Mets. We're putting that on the back burner. Thank you for listening watching. Hope you enjoy this edition of the Zach Lowe Show. This episode of the Zach Lowe show is presented by HubSpot. Using only 20% of your business data is like going from a starting five to a starting one. Good luck with that. But that's how most businesses operate today, using only 20% of their data. Unless you have HubSpot, where all the data hidden in emails, call logs and chat messages turns into insights to grow your business. Because having all the data makes all the difference. Learn [e-mail] welcome to the Zach Lowe Show. It's Monday. Sam Amick from the Athletic is here. How you doing, buddy?

[Sam Amick]

Zach Lowe. What's up, stranger? Great to see your face. Great to be on the pod. I'm doing well. You know, we were just complaining about our various weather patterns on opposite sides of the country. Those are the things you do when, when you're not NBA busy enough. But. But we're getting there.

[Zach Lowe]

You know what I'm not going to complain about today, Sam Amick. Not going to complain about the New York Mets dropping two straight games to the Washington Nationals and falling out of the wild card spot to the freaking Cincinnati Reds. We're just going to, just going to leave it there. There might be some alcohol consumed on this podcast on Thursday. If the next few days go badly, I want to give a special fu to the Chicago Cubs for getting swept by the Cincinnati Reds and barely scoring any runs. You are on my shit list, Chicago Cubs. I don't care who's a fan of you. Okay? The biggest.

[Sam Amick]

Hold on, I gotta, I gotta tie a bow on that. Since you had to go down the baseball road again, bi Coastal here a long time San Francisco Giants fan. And while they did beat the Dodgers last night, they are equally out of reach in the wild card at the moment. So I feel your pain, buddy. And maybe alcohol as well.

[Zach Lowe]

One of my favorite ballparks in the country and my daughter, when the Mets were playing the Giants, was fascinated by the concept of a splash hit. She's like, tap in. Who does this? It's the greatest things you've ever seen. Okay, the. The news of the weekend, such as it was, was Tyler Herro undergoing foot surgery and missing, according to ESPN and other reports, about eight weeks, which could be 1415 games for the Miami Heat. The first thing that I thought of was the Heat, who I was high on. Should I still be high on them? I don't know. Coming into the season, I thought they were being underrated by Vegas, NBA pundits and all that. They don't, they don't have a. Even for someone with a rosy outlook like me, they didn't have a lot of margin for error if their goal was a top six seed. And so this is like particularly for a team whose offense has been terrible and lacking in shot creation. This, even if it's a 1415 game absence, could could be a big deal. Putting them behind the eight ball if they get too far behind the eight ball, a lot of interesting possibilities open up for a team that owns its pick in this particular year, but not the next year. I'm not going there yet. I'm just saying it's out there. Like, Terry Rozier might have to be resurrected. Yakachunas, the rookie might have to play. Norm Powell, I think probably slides at the hero starting spot. And I just. This is a tough one for the Heat. They better hope for a quick recovery because, like, they. Their offense was like, what, 21st, 22nd last year? He's their best offensive player. It's gonna get dicey for them. But it did get us thinking about, you know, Tyler Herro on October 1 becomes eligible for a three year, $150 million extension. He has two guaranteed years left on his deal, 31 and 33. And that got me thinking, like, he's a pretty dicey interest. Not dicey, like bad, but just a really interesting extension candidate. Like, what's the number? Would the Heat even do it? Would the Heat do it now? What number would make them do it? What is his trade value around the league? And then we're gonna. It got me interested in, like, who are the other kind of thorny extension candidates among the veterans? Not the rookie scale guys, but the veteran guys that are eligible for extension. There's some sneaky ones. I thought Sam Amick, he's always got the intel. He's always got the juice. He's always got some. Something to say. So why don't we do that? Let's start with Tyler Herro. Any thoughts on his injury?

[Sam Amick]

Yeah. Terrible timing, like you said. I like how you framed it. The margin for error for this group was already so thin, you know, with ambitious aspirations of trying to push for a back end playoff spot. I'm with you. I think collectively, bad news individually, bad news, because, you know, you already have this dynamic where, okay, you know, they continue to be behind, bam, out of bio, in terms of part of their core. They obviously did what they did with Jimmy Butler and pivoted there. We know the competitiveness in the culture where they're always going to try to stay in it. But where is that threshold, right? Does the hero injury, if it leads to a slow start to the year, end up having a domino effect when it comes to not only his talks, but. But the plan overall? Because as far as your question of him as a player, Zach, you know, I looked at it. Not to pull the old stat head thing, but it's like, all right, 23, 5 and 5. Last year, one of seven players who played at least 60 games to hit those marks.

[Zach Lowe]

But.

[Sam Amick]

But it was obviously a terrible year on the back end. And. And those are somewhat hollow numbers, at least to a degree. So it does make for a fascinating negotiation, especially when you put the health into it.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah. You know, Tyler Hero is a really good player, like, very good offensive player. Had a great year last year, made the all star team. He also gets picked on on defense quite a bit. I looked this up. Only one guard in the league got put into more pick and rolls on defense than he did as the guy guarding the screener. And we will get to that guard shortly. He is my favorite extension case in a long, long time. He also has Tyler Herro, unlike that guard and others, has next season, 26, 27 is fully locked in. It's not a player option. It's not anything. And so I. If I were the Heat, I would just do nothing now because I. I just, you know, he can get anywhere up to, what, 30% of the max. You could start there, I think, on. On his extension. And I'm just like, I'm not going anywhere near that. I don't know what the right number is. And although I think he's a very good player, I think his current salary is fair. It did get me to thinking, like, alternatively, what is Tyler Herro's trade value? Like, who would give you real stuff just for Tyler Hero? And I came up with a little bit of a list, Sam. But, like, I don't think his trade value on this current contract is very high, in part because whoever trades for him is. Knows the same thing that he know right now. It's like, we're gonna have to pay this guy and we don't know what the number is.

[Sam Amick]

No, I couldn't agree more. And it's. I mean, we'll get to this. But league wide, when you have this suppression of. Of maxes and you have guys like Tyler Herro, who I think, if not, you know, pushing for a max, you know, have visions of being that kind of a guy, that's where the discussions get uncomfortable between team and player side. So the defensive concerns are legitimate. And again, because of the history of that franchise and what they're purported to be constantly pushing for, which is nothing, you know, less than title contention, I don't think you want to get saddled with a big number when you don't have more clarity in terms of who is going to be part of that core and where you're going.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, Heroes. Hero was like a perfect candidate to be included in a trade for a better player, which is what they tried to do with Damian Lillard and maybe who knows, others on his own. As a guy like trade him for future assets or a good young player. I'm not sure what the value is. You want me to go through my, my Tyler Hero theoretical teams real fast?

[Sam Amick]

For sure. Let's hear it.

[Zach Lowe]

Detroit don't think that's the guy they're going to rush to pair with Cade. You can see the shooting, playmaking fit, but I would say no. Toronto just like needs anybody who could shoot. But I think there's just a lot of questions there. I don't know what salary, what player the Heat would even want back from the Raptors. Milwaukee. I mean at that. He's from Wisconsin. At that point you're topping out on like basically salary relief. Like we'll give you the end of Kuzma's deal. Maybe an okay young player. Are you satisfied with that? I thought about Charlotte just for the sheer humor of Lamelo Ball and Tyler Herro together. I don't see it. Clippers apron issues. Lakers have Austin Reeves, my favorite. Dallas could put together like Clay plus Gafford. I don't really see what the point of that is for either team. And again Dallas then has to face down having three huge salaries potentially with Kyrie and AD My favorite one was Minnesota and building a deal around like Nas Reed and Filler for Tyler Herro and rebalancing the Wolves roster and putting him on the same team as like a whole army of awesome defensive players. Is Nazrid a great fit in Miami? I think with Bam, maybe. But then he, he becomes a third big with Ware and Bam. I don't know, it's just like, it's hard to find like the team that's like, oh yeah, here's three first round picks for Tyler Hero. I just don't think that deal is out there and I would. I think. I think they'll discuss an extension. When? On October 1st. When they're allowed to start doing. Would surprise me if the Heat would do a number that Tyler Herro would do right now. And this injury is concerning. It's concerning.

[Sam Amick]

I like a lot of those. I mean to me it's got to be a team that's somewhat close. You know what I mean? It's the Minnesota's, it's. I could see the Milwaukee scenario. Detroit, I like that as well. In a vacuum. You know, I think. Shoot. You're talking about Anthony Edwards and. And Tyler on the T. Wolf Side, you know, it's gotta be something where it's close. But. But I, I'm with you. I think it's a tough landscape.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, I don't see any of those happening. And Detroit, I mean Detroit's interesting. I just. And I don't see them doing a head over heels deal for Tyler Hero and Milwaukee just doesn't have enough to offer the heat.

[Sam Amick]

Right.

[Zach Lowe]

So the veteran extensions are always sneaky because our radar this year is always on like the Jaden Ivey, Jaylen Duran, all the rookie scale guys that are coming up. Dyson Daniels is a big one for extensions. I like these guys because they're sneaky. They sneak up on you a little bit timetable wise. And what the player and the team does in these situations can really be telling about what happens in the future. The headliner is going to be Trey Young. I'm putting Trey. I'm saving Trey Young for last because I just can't talk about this situation enough. It's the most interesting situation in the entirely. And we're going to talk about the Pat Bev beef because I.

[Sam Amick]

What are you having Pat Bev on?

[Zach Lowe]

I. I don't know that he'll do it, but I did, I did listen to all of it. I listened to it. Did you? I dove in and I did the homework.

[Sam Amick]

I listened to quite a bit. Not the whole thing, but yeah, a lot of it.

[Zach Lowe]

Let's go rapid fire through some guys that people may or may not realize are eligible for extensions either now or very soon. Like on October 1 and some in some cases just for a limited period of time. You ready?

[Sam Amick]

Yep.

[Zach Lowe]

Rapid fire. We'll go. We'll do some big names first. Carl Anthony Towns.

[Sam Amick]

You want thoughts?

[Zach Lowe]

I want thoughts. Well, let's outline. He has 53, 57 player option for 61. He is or will be soon eligible for an extension of such heft that I did not even bother looking up the number. It's just a lot of freaking money. Thoughts, Sam Amick.

[Sam Amick]

Well, you just hit it on the back end of your breakdown there. Know I've got. I think there's a three year possibility but the two year is. Is about 150. You're talking about $75 million a year. The timeline. I don't see the urgency because you know he's got the player option in 27. You know you did the Mikhail Bridges deal, you did the Jalen Brunson deal. You've still got cat for a minute here and I think they've got to figure out the Absolute ceiling on what they have after that season. That was so exciting for Knicks fans. And then on the back end, you know, it was disappointing at the end where Cat fits into it. I mean, if you're doing something like this, you know, I think the question is, do you really want to commit to cap in his mid-30s, and that's no disrespect to him, but he's a big. Who's had some injury stuff, you know, to me, that's why I don't see something getting done here.

[Zach Lowe]

The number is so big, even if you go down from what his salary would be, the number would still be so big and they still have time that I just can't imagine anything happening right now related to that. Knicks have two more guys that are, I think, almost more interesting than Cat. Mitchell Robinson, who's in the final year of his contract for 12.9 million, and Deuce McBride is already eligible for another extension. My quick read on both those situations, and you, please disagree with me if you. If you disagree. I think Mitch is probably a no, because I think the Knicks want to see how healthy he is and how he plays. I think they might like the idea of an expiring contract motivating him. And if they. Look, if he. See, if he. If he gave them like a great number, I think they would do it. I just don't see that. And deuce, who makes 4.3 this year and 4 the next year, I think we'll just want. Again, they have time on their side and he would want a big number. And I think that. I think it's a no on both, but I'm willing to hear otherwise.

[Sam Amick]

No, I think. I agree. Unless, you know, whenever guys go through the type of stuff that Mitchell has gone through, you do wonder if they want that security. So if there was a happy medium, then maybe. But no, I think you're right.

[Zach Lowe]

Before we move on to the other headliners, I mentioned earlier in going through the hero teams, Toronto and Milwaukee, Toronto has RJ Barrett, I'm a no on that. And Milwaukee has AJ Green. I'm going to go a yes on AJ Green. I feel. I think they have all year to do it. I don't think there's any timeline on it. And I think there's, like. I think he's a pretty good fit for Giannis, and I think. I just think he's a decent young player who will take a number that's palatable to both sides. I'm going to go yes on AJ Green. All right. You Want to go back to a couple big names?

[Sam Amick]

Let's do it.

[Zach Lowe]

We're going to go to your neck of the woods. Zach Lavine, 47 million this year, $48 million player option next year. Basically the same exact deal as Trae Young. He's eligible for an extension. It's a lot. I'm not going to bother to say what the numbers are. What do you think?

[Sam Amick]

No, that's a. I think that's a hard no. That was a hard no. Kind of on day one when. When the Kings had their front office overhaul and Scott Perry came in. It's as an aside, and I know, you know, this context, one of the more unique situations, I don't know that we've ever had a GM get hired and then immediately have to face some stuff that he said in the media when he did ESPN work. Scott Perry was on record analyzing Zach Levine as a player.

[Zach Lowe]

I didn't see this.

[Sam Amick]

You never saw this. Yeah, he. And to his credit, man, he is. He's cleaned it up. But also, same time. But what he said at the time, and I'm going to paraphrase, was that that Zach Levine, at the type of money that he's been making for quite a while, is just not enough of a winning player. And he questioned, you know, the fact that Zach had not been in the playoffs all that much and went down that road. Little did he know he was going to get hired by the Kings and Zach would be on the roster. Now, they have discussed, you know, those comments in the past. They appear to be in a good place. I think the relationship is sound, but, no, the Kings are trying to figure out what they have and what they're going to do with their core. And I've been told there's no interest in an extension.

[Zach Lowe]

I was a hard no. I just see no universe in which the Kings. I mean, you could just. Never underestimate the Kings, but I see no universe in which they would do it. We're going to come back to this in a second, but another candidate I wanted to hit is Darius Garland. Darius Garland, though, has three years left on his deal. Fully locked in. 39, 42, 45. I see no. I can't imagine the Cavs are really going to entertain this now with that much time. DeAndre Hunter is eligible for an extension. He has two years left. Max Struz also has two years left. I think it's a no on all three given their financial commitments. But Garland is the interesting one I want to zero in on. And I just look at these. And the way this would work, let's just like, fast forward a year, and then I think it becomes a more realistic discussion for Cleveland because the timetable is a little bit tighter.

[Sam Amick]

Right.

[Zach Lowe]

The way this would normally work is Rich Paul, who represents Darius Garland, comes in and is like, hey, look, this guy's an All Star. Like, we want the max. That's it. And like, that's the whole negotiation. Or at the very least, you. You see players of this caliber, and let's say this is between the. On a very good day, the 15th and 35th best player in the NBA, something like that. You almost never see players of this caliber sign extensions that start below the final year of their current contract in terms of money or like, well below that. And I just wonder, in this apron environment, like, I think Garland is an O for now. Maybe next year it changes. And this relates to Levine, too, and even Cat. I just think in this apron environment, the days of you just walking into extensions that start flat with your current salary, if your current salary is really high. Yeah, I wonder if those are just over. And these teams are going to try to push players to recalibrate this and even try to kind of swipe some of these players back on cheaper than they would expect deals because they just say, look, there was no money for free agents this summer. There'll be more next summer, but there'll be extension signed in between. Everyone is paranoid about the apron, but the days, to me of Darius Garland being like, well, it has to start at least 47 million or something because I'm Darius Garland and I'm an All Star, and the team being like, yeah, sure, of course it feels like teams are going to start if they haven't already reconsidering that.

[Sam Amick]

Couldn't agree more. I think we're going to get closer to that ecosystem where, you know, the MAX guys are actually considered Max guys. Not to get ahead of our programming, but I still. The idea that even an older Kevin Durant might have to consider taking less than Max, to me, is all that you need to know when it comes to the way things are operating right now.

[Zach Lowe]

And.

[Sam Amick]

And I think to your urgency point with the Cavs and Garland, that's it. They just. They don't. They're not pressured into this right now. They need to see. It's a little bit like the Knicks. They need to see if they can make that one last leap into, you know, the title land they're trying to get to. And if they can't, then they're going to have to reevaluate because Donovan's got a player option in 27. And if, you know, Darius is not the perfect fit for him in the backcourt, then you might want to think about doing something there. And you know the context here, Zach? How? I mean, last summer, you know, there was some. Some massaging that had to happen between Donovan, Mitchell, Darius, Garland and Kenny Atkinson and that group when it came to, you know, kind of the way the previous season ended. So this is a show me year, I think, for Darius and the group. And then. And then they take it from there.

[Zach Lowe]

I called it last week the proof of concept year. You know, injuries really submarine them against the Pacers in the play in the second round last year. Fine. You know, they've been underwhelming in the playoffs before that. Again, injuries. The year before when they lost to Boston. They were decimated in that series. They weren't going to win it anyway, but they were decimated. And then the year before, getting bullied off the floor by the Knicks. They haven't had an encouraging playoff run yet. You can explain all of them away with youth and injuries and maybe, you know, who knows if they're healthy or not at the end of this year, but this is a prove it year for them. And if they disappoint in the playoffs, again in a way that feels somehow endemic to the fabric of the team, those four dudes are not all going to be on the team next year. The 400% guys, there's good. It's. And Garland would be the most likely and Allen would be the most likely. Those two, because you're not moving Mitchell and you're not moving Mobley. It's a prove it year. And it's similarly for the Heat with Hero. Just to go back to them, I already said, like, this is bordering on an existential crisis kind of season for the Heat. Like, we lost Jimmy Butler. We don't have a star. We have some of our assets back, but their value is sort of murky around the league. Young players and picks. Like, can we even get a star? How would that happen? Our offense is kind of broken. How do we fix it? How do we modernize it? Have our two tentpole guys kind of peaked at, like, fringy all star types every year? Or is there something more here? But the Cavs have a higher class existential crisis year. Approve it year. Let's just do Durant now. I said a couple of weeks ago when I got back from my. My sojourns in Europe that the best Prediction I could offer on Durant was, I do think a deal will get done. I think the Rockets are probably waiting to get Tar Eason's extension done, joining up with Jabari Smith Jr. And then see sort of what the math is apron tax wise for Durant. I haven't heard anything since to dissuade me from that, but who knows what's been happening? What have you heard?

[Sam Amick]

No, I mean, similar stuff. When they did the deal for Kevin, there was, you know, nothing but confidence coming from the Rocket side that something would get done. Initially, I made the mistake of thinking, you know, usually trades like that, you would almost have a deal in place, you know, kind of informally at that time. That wasn't the case. I still think something gets done. I'm a little surprised of the, the Tar Eason hang up and, and definitely curious to learn more about exactly where that is because that's a little bit analogous to, you know, the warriors obviously have all this business that's on hold with the Kaminga stuff where they can't figure out the books and who's going to get paid what. And so I get the delay when it comes to E and Kevin, but it would, you know, it would make me a little nervous. I mean, this is a game changing X factor, you know, move for a Rockets team that obviously made the choice to speed up their timeline. I don't, I've seen Kevin Durant in the last year of his deal before with the warriors, and it's not necessarily a great thing. I think getting him firmed up is pretty important.

[Zach Lowe]

You know, he's already announced he's not taking it, and everyone, everyone just sort of skirted past his, his, the, the news that he wasn't taking an extension this summer. We should probably at least mention Nicola Jokic, who's the best basketball player in the world.

[Sam Amick]

Sure. Yeah.

[Zach Lowe]

Nobody in Denver was. Nobody in Denver batted an eye that I heard privately, publicly, when Jokic said, you know what? It doesn't make sense for me financially to do it this summer. Let's revisit it next summer. He's never, there's never even been a whisper through coaching changes at the last minute, through roster turmoil, through losing core guys because of tax issues and whatever, through Calvin Booth getting fired at the end of the season. Through all that, there have been a whisper of like, this guy wants to go to a different team. There's, there's the joke whispers about could he just retire and go back to Sobor and, and be a horse guy, like, whatever. Maybe there Never been a whisper, and so we skirted past it. But you just have to flag it that if we get to next summer, it's. It's. Then it becomes a little bit of an issue. But I. I mean, look, I. All the fans of teams whose guys are constantly in trade rumors like the Bucks are, are justifiably like, why don't you ever mention Giannis? Why. Why is there. No. Why is there no panic about that? And it's truly, we mentioned Jokic. It's because there isn't any panic about it. I haven't heard any panic about it. I haven't heard anything from his agency indicating that he's upset about X, Y and Z. It would ask for a trade. Who knows what's possible? That's all I heard.

[Sam Amick]

That's fair. That's something I've actually spent a fair amount of time this summer talking to people about. And as an aside, I mean, I had a Bucks person give me a hard time and say they were just happy that I included Joker in a column about 27 because they were tired of, be honest, being by himself. I, I'm. I'm an actions over words person. And my thing is that just because there's no panic in Denver, which that does matter to me, that has not stopped some of these other teams from making, you know, decisions that are at least in part tied to the type of players who might be available in the summer of 27, and Joker being one of them. I mean, Lakers and Clippers and the Clippers are, you know, obviously a mess right now otherwise, but they are, you know, signaling they want the freedom in 27. The warriors are doing the same thing. That's not just about Giannis, that's about the possibility of Joker, the possibility of Donovan. And the Joker thing to me, too, is this is a little apples to oranges act. But, you know, I told someone when Darren Fox turned down his extension in Sacramento a couple years ago, it was the same narrative. Well, it's only for financial reasons. It's got nothing to do with his feelings about the organization. And it was a like, life comes at you fast type situation, because six months later, it had everything to do with what he actually wanted. Next thing you know, he's pushing his way out of town. So you never know how these things are going to go.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, the Kings handled that situation beautifully. Just textbook management of a star player and a coach and all that. Just classic. A couple other big names that I'm going hard. No, no, no on, but just need to be Mentioned Draymond Green is eligible. I don't see it. John Morant is eligible. I really don't see it. Zion Williamson is eligible. Don't see it. Don't know how anybody could see it. Any disagreement there?

[Sam Amick]

No. I mean, Draymond's on the same timeline as Steph and Jimmy and that's the plan. Jaw. I go back to the urgency. You know, word you picked earlier. There's just none in benefits and so many questions. Health wise, off the court wise. So no in Zion is similar themes. So I'm with you.

[Zach Lowe]

Zion is just a walking question mark at this point. A wide one, wider than the usual type typeset question mark. Although he looks. He's looked good this summer.

[Sam Amick]

Okay, good.

[Zach Lowe]

And Morant again. Three years left on his deal as well. This episode is brought to you by Samsung. If you're someone who's constantly bouncing between games, text notes and stats, guilty. The new Galaxy Z Fold 7 is for you. Z Fold 7 basically turns into a mini tablet when it's open, so you can view up to three. Three windows at once. Holy smokes. And watch the game on a wide screen from anywhere that need that wide screen. Game over. Fold it up and it fits in your hand. Can your phone do that? The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7. Learn more at Samsung. Com. Display measurements to diagonal and actual viewable area is less due to rounded corners and camera hole punch. Okay, then, my next homework assignment for you is pick one or two under the radar extension candidates that you find actually interesting to talk about. And did you have any for me?

[Sam Amick]

I've got one for you. It's good old Laker land. You know, I kind of alluded to it a second ago. The Lakers trying to keep some of the money and their powder dry for 27. You know, it seemed like it was a hard strategy of we're not adding anything. It seemingly softened on that front recently with the idea that they would look at Andrew Wiggins and maybe go after a player like that. So in that context, Rui Hachimura is an interesting guy because, you know, he has given them the type of shooting they need. He's a good fit with Luka. If you're talking about the here and the now, and he's on an $18.2 million expiring deal, he's the kind of guy you would want to lock up. I don't think something's going to happen there, but, you know, it's interesting to me because they're one of those teams that's going to continue being conservative for the prospect of what might be down the line. But if they struggle in the present tense then you know, and then Rui ends up skipping town and your core is diminished as a result of that, then it just makes for an interesting calculus.

[Zach Lowe]

I'm thrilled you brought him up because he's on my list of under the radar extension candidates. There's been so much attention on Austin Reeves potential extension which was just a non starter from perspective. It was never going to happen. It was. They could not offer him enough money. They can offer Rui Hachimura enough money to pique his interest. I think his extension would start somewhere like around 26 million and go up from there based on his current salary. I think Rui Hachimura is good. I think he's actually underrated. When I hear the discussions about who would come off the bench if they decide to sign Marcus Smart, he's a de facto answer and I get that because it's not going to be Ayton, you're not going to start small and it's not going to be any of the LeBron, Luka and Reeves is just. It's politically probably difficult for that to happen. I'm just like I don't know that the answer to the whatever problems the Lakers might have is like less of a 40% ish 3 point shooter with some one on one skills and defensive versatility playing around star players.

[Sam Amick]

Right.

[Zach Lowe]

I actually think there's going to be some discussions on this one. I don't know that they'll come to a deal for the exact reason you mentioned about cap flexibility but I'll bet you there's going to be some discussions about it because I think he's an interesting candidate. Any others? You want me to get my under the radar candidates off?

[Sam Amick]

No, I'll throw it to you. But with one final thought. There is like to me if they, if they end up swinging and missing on the Wiggins types I could see it as a plan B plan C type thing like let's go ahead and use some of that money. I really and and not go backwards here.

[Zach Lowe]

Okay. My under the radar types. Here we go. I don't know where to start here. I'm gonna start on my. I'm going back to my theory that the extension landscape might change a little bit and become a little bit more team friendly and player unfriendly and that some smart team is going to try to jump on that and get a guy below market. Like what if the. Just to go back to the Kings, your Kings Zach Levine, what is he making 47 million this year or something like that? 46 million. What if they went to him and were like four years, 120, 30 million a year. You lock it in for four years. The instinct would be for him to be insulted by that. That's a $15 million pay cut. And the Kings say, look. Well, look at the. Look at the landscape, look at the apron, look at your age, look at your, you know, playoff resume or lack thereof. And the player I thought about that, not equivalent, but Cam Johnson is sneakily extension eligible for the Denver Nuggets. They just traded Michael Porter Jr. For him. Michael Porter Jr. Is extension eligible for the Brooklyn Nets. Don't see that one. Cam 21.1 and 23 in his last year. Could you build something reasonable off of that for both sides? I think you could, except that in 27, 28, the Nuggets could have 62.8 Jokic, 53.8, Murray, 34.5 Gordon, and adding a fourth salary even at like 25. Even if you could coax Cam Johnson, it's just a lot to commit. But he's an interesting player, and that's an interesting number. That's all.

[Sam Amick]

I like that. The only thing he would make me nervous. If you're the Nuggets, like, I want to see it first. I want to see that he was an upgrade over mpj. You know, that the MPJ number is played a big part and why he ultimately ended up getting shipped out. I don't know that you'd want to turn and. And then attach a big number to Cam right away. The flip side of that in terms of motivations is, you know, if you're Ben Tenzer and John Wallace, a new front office in Denver, and you're feeling good about your ability to pull off this trade in the first place, then, you know, human nature kicks in, like you want to, you know, firm up those relationships. So maybe you want to go ahead and secure Cam for the long term. But I, I would lean towards Nello because you need to see if Cam makes you that much better and puts you even that much closer to, to another title first.

[Zach Lowe]

I agree. I would lean no Tomani Camara. The Blazers can wait a year, so we'll table that under the radar. Candidate number two, Lou Dort, Oklahoma City Thunder. He is in. Let me bring up their cap sheet. 18.2 this year, team option, 18.2 next year. So the Thunder controlled the next two years. Similar number to Hachimura in terms of what his max extension Based on his current salary would be. Anyway, that's a tough one for the Thunder because obviously they have to be very protective of their future. They have three max guys now going forward in Shay, Chet and J Dub, and they're clearly their model is going to emphasize Those three guys keep building through the draft and rookie contracts with limited space for the guys in the middle in the Caruso Dort, you know, down the line, it could be Aaron Wiggins salary angel. He's under contract for a bunch more years. Caruso's already locked up through 2029. It's a tough spot for them. Tax what Their tax bills are going to be enormous. You pay the tax for a team like this. That's what you do. And you know, he is a homegrown guy, a guy that they, they. They kind of discovered and found and worked with to become a legit 3 and D starter on a great team. And you want to keep and reward guys like that. It's good for the culture. It's good for the franchise's image. It's just good. Like there's clearly a good bond between the two. I would again lean no. For this current off season slash fall because they have the extra year to work with. But that's. And I think he'd have a market if he ever got to unrestricted free agency too, because he's just that good defensively. That would be a. I mean, obviously Thunder fans have started to think about like, are we going to lose Hartenstein because of this? Are we going to lose Door? Because this isn't new. It's just, you know, it would be a tough blow to ever. To ever see him go away from the Thunder.

[Sam Amick]

I think if I was Lou, I would be Wade because, man, this league, you know, the way that it doesn't value defense unless you're Rudy Gobert. Basically, you know, you got a guy, Lou Dort, who's getting votes for defensive player of the year. Culture wise, as important as anybody on that Thunder team. 41.2% from three last year and 5.8 attempts. I mean, that fits today's game. So, you know, with those two years left, if I'm him, I'm waiting. And again, if you're the Thunder, you're probably encouraging to wait too, because the number he's going to be looking for is going to absolutely jam up your books. So it is an interesting one. As you know, the general idea or thought around the league is that either Lou or Isaiah is going to have to go at some point. You know, Isaiah is the guy who brings a ton, but he's new to the program. And Lou, you know, such a cool story coming from nothing and couldn't shoot back in the day and fix his shot in the middle of his NBA career, which you never see, but. But yeah, I don't see a deal happening right now.

[Zach Lowe]

Two more quick ones under the radar. Aaron Neesmith has two years at 11 million a pop left. Locked in, eligible for, I think three years, 63. It's interesting. I don't know that there's been any real discussions there yet, but that's interesting.

[Sam Amick]

It is. And I mean, that's. That's a guy that I think you want to hang on to. So it's. If the number's right. I'm trying to do that at this time when the Pacers are. Are scrambling to recover from, you know, what happened at the end of last year. But looking forward, I'm trying to get something done there.

[Zach Lowe]

That could also have been an either or thing with Nemhardt, who's locked up for 20 a year for the next three years. And they have 105 million in 27, 28 to Halliburton and Siakam. So I don't know. But, you know, I. Look, I live on Aaron Neesmith island. I was one of the first property owners there. I think that's the kind of guy who, you know, you could work with in a deal there that's going to pay him more than he's ever made in his NBA career. And then lastly, the Bulls have some interesting extension situations. The fight in Chicago, Bulls playing, Playing or bust? Kobe White. I don't think they can offer enough, as I've said before, to get him to sign IO to Sumnu is kind of interesting. He makes seven and a half this year. They can go to 140% of the league average salary, which would be like 18 to 20 a year. I think he's pretty good. He's right in the thick of his prime. I'll bet you there is a number there that they could get to now. They're set up to have a bonanza of cap space going forward. The Bulls don't exactly have a good track record of turning cap space into stuff, but just. They have have it. I. That's just one I'd keep my eye on. I have no read for that situation. I have no feel for that situation. I don't think anything has really been broached in any serious way yet. But it's just. He's an interesting. He's an interesting guy. And they also have some other Young guys that are eligible for extensions, but those are my under the radar guys.

[Sam Amick]

I like him. Good work, buddy. Much longer than my list. I just happen to contribute.

[Zach Lowe]

I. I like, I like going under the radar. Okay, now we're going over the radar. We're going to the whole thing that's on the radar. I just can't remember a situation that I have found is interesting from just say, what the hell are you supposed to do? Standpoint. Then Trae Young's current extension standoff with the Atlanta Hawks. A standoff is strong. There just isn't one. And he sort of passive aggressively tweeted about team loyalty or some such thing two months ago. He's eligible for a four year, $230 million extension. According to Bobby Marks. There is no timetable, no deadline that, that can sit all year. They have all year to make that decision. He has $46 million guaranteed this year and then has a $49 million player option next year. So theoretically, you could enter unrestricted free agency in an environment in which there is more cap room. I first want to congratulate Trey Young on maybe the pettiest and Most passive aggressive YouTube video counter argument rant at Patrick Beverley that maybe I've ever seen. And I just want to just. I want to just give him credit for some masterpieces of passive aggressiveness, calling him Patty Bev A plus. A plus. And just, just know. And now I know if anyone ever calls you my guy, you're not their guy. My guy is just a great modern pejorative. Like, you know, Pat Bev my guy. And then at the end, he congratulates Pat Beverly on his NBA career. Says, you deserve all the accolades. Thank you for your contributions to the game on defense. Like a, like, way to beat on defense. And just, I mean. And then Pat Bev went back it. And went back. I just. Trey Young just like, just the, the level of petty. And he just deadpan, like, my guy. Just deadpan. My guy, Patty Bev. I wasn't scared of Patty Bev ever. My guy. Just a masterpiece.

[Sam Amick]

Like, I have a pet peeve. Whenever anybody randomly calls you Bud, like, that's my. My guy. Like, don't. Don't call me Bud. You know what I mean? Like, that's. Yes. That's. Doesn't land. Well, I. I'm with you and Trey. Zach. I went to a thing in the finals. It was a Kendall Jackson wine event where Trey actually had a. I know. A little plug. Sorry. Sat down with Mark Spears from Anscape. And he, they kind of hosted a group and Trey was out there telling stories and listen, he did a great job. What struck me about this YouTube clip was like, you know, the guy on that clip was, you know, was 10x of the guy at the KJ event in terms of charisma, delivery and timing and the pettiness. I mean, even the little clip. And they edited it a bit. But when he is exasperated, he gets out of the chair and he tells his producer like, man, why are we even doing this? Like, why am I here? Like, I'm too big for this, basically, is what he's trying to say. But it was, it was some good theater.

[Zach Lowe]

It was really just a fantastic performance by everybody involved. My guy, the most encouraging, by the way, Pat Bev, in his initial rant number one about Trae Young, which I don't even know what prompted it, I can't remember, said something about how basically teammates don't like playing with Trey Young. And Trey Young responded by saying, look, I got all my teammates cell phone numbers. I'm in touch with them. You know, state your source. Who doesn't, who doesn't want to play with me? I think, I think Pat Bev probably exaggerated the degree to which that sentiment has existed around the Atlanta Hawks. But I also, like, I mean, I had Kevin Herder on this podcast during the Beam team here and I asked him about this and his response was sort of not exactly a full throated endorsement of playing with Trey Young. I'll put it that way. Like, I think there's some reality to what Pat Bev said. But the most encouraging thing, if I were running the Atlanta Hawks, that Trae Young said in that 12 minute rant to Pat Beverley was something to the effect of, if you know me, Trey Young, you know, nothing makes me happier than helping my teammates succeed. Because that I want, I, I want you to play like that's really true this year, and not just by getting 11 assists a game. I want you to move off the ball more. I want you to get off the ball earlier and trust our system. I want you to cut a little bit. I want you to not stand at half court off the television screen when you don't have the ball. And I want you to compete on defense, which I think he started to last year. Not good enough, but a start. And I mentioned that Tyler Herro was put in the second most pick and rolls last season of all guards. Trae young was number one by like 200 pick and rolls or something. According to the tracking data, it was a lot. And they have the defensive ecosystem now, I think to protect him. And why I find his extension candidacy so interesting is A, I think they're going to be really good this year and they can see how good they are as they make this decision. B, everything I said about the idea that you just walk into a salary equivalent to what you're making or higher to what you're making in an extension may be changing a little bit. Should apply to Trey Young, who's a liability on one end of the floor, who is an all Star, who had really one playoff run in his career. I think a third team, all NBA, like maybe, maybe some one or two of those should apply to him. And yet I look at the Hawks and I'm like, I can justify maybe not the full four years, 230, but I can talk myself into a pretty fair and fat deal for Trae Young because two reasons. Number one, they're going to be good. Number two, depending on what happens with Dyson Daniels, where his number comes in, and Porzingis, who's also eligible for an extension. Their finances are actually pretty good for the next three years going forward. Unless they pay Porzingis a lot and Trey a lot and Dyson, top end. Then they get into apron territory. Porzingis, to me is the swing piece. If you conclude you can live without him, you're pretty set like avoiding the apron and stuff financially until 28, 29 when rise sachet gets onto his new contract. And number three, and most importantly, it's all cool to be like, well, Trae Young, what does he want? He's a liability on defense. Just let him walk. He's not worth 49 million or 40 million or 45 million. So what's your plan B as a franchise? You have Jalen Johnson. You've got some really good talent. I love, I love Daniels. Akongwu Alexander, Walker's here now. Jalen Johnson, Asa Newell, they just drafted. They also have two really valuable future picks coming to them, partially belonging to the Bucks in the next two seasons. They have let me go back and, well, I'll just, I'll get it later. They have the. Obviously from the Derek Queen trade. They have the most favorable of Milwaukee's New Orleans pick. And then in 27, they have the least favorable of New Orleans and Milwaukee's pick. Those are two good building blocks, but you don't know. Those could be the number 8 pick, the number 1 pick, the number 12 pick, the number 15, but you have no idea what picks you're getting there. And so without Trae Young, it's a bunch of interesting pieces that don't necessarily have anything to fuse them together. And I actually think the argument for extending Trae Young at a pretty big number might outweigh the caution of, like, let's just like, risk letting this guy go into unrestricted free agency. Even though I could say the I, I could. I think that's the most likely course here is that they do let him go into unrestricted free agency and bet on familiarity, bird rights, the extra year, all that leverage they have. But I think this is as interesting an extension situation as I can remember.

[Sam Amick]

So I'm going to start real quick with the stuff you alluded to about the past. I agree with you that, you know, I think the way Patty Bev put it is that it was, it was the Atlanta Treys is what his source or his kind of fellow player told him that the experience was like with the Hawks. And I do think that was a thing years ago. I reported pretty heavily on that at the time and some of the battles he had with the coaching staff in the front office. And, you know, there was a time when his leadership was, I think, fairly questioned. The irony of this whole situation is that last year there was a lot of positive feedback coming out of Atlanta when it comes to Trey and the way he carried himself and the way he played and his willingness to, like you said, try to compete more on defense, try to do the types of little things that he hadn't done in the past. And it does create this ironic situation where they have a roster that is pretty, you know, well suited to hide some of Trey's weaknesses and to elevate his strengths. And so what does that number look like when it comes to these talks? Because in the absence of Trey, you are another team that just has some good young pieces. You're not pushing towards some sort of contention. Again, the urgency side of things, if I'm them, I want to see again this season. What does it look like? Does Jalen take another, another step forward? How does Porzingis fit in all those things? But it is a really interesting landscape. I mean, Trey is a fantastic player. I still think, you know, when you hear him talk about himself at times, yes, I think at times he has a bit of an overinflated sense of where he's at in the league. If you asked him, you know, are you top 15? He's probably going to say yes. And I just, that's just not the case. But, you know, Atlanta is A market where you're going to have a hard time getting stars if you let him go. And you might lose a little window here with the rest of this group where you could actually do something.

[Zach Lowe]

I don't know where, where I would rank him. I know that like, like he's significantly better than Tyler Herro. The playmaking he brings is a plus plus and can just not be slept on. The lefty one handed passes across the court, the gravity he has out to half court, every pass in the bag for a guy his size is crazy. It's crazy what a good passer he is. I mean, I'll just put a number on it. Like I said, I don't even know what I would do for Tyler herro. Right. So four years to 230 is what he's eligible for. I don't think I would do that. Like, there's no point in me doing that if I'm the Hawks. Unless I'm that scared about him walking away. And what the downside is for you? I'm not that scared.

[Sam Amick]

Right.

[Zach Lowe]

Would I come right now and say, hey, you're making 45.999 this year. How about four years? 180, 45 million a pop? Four years, 190 if you want to make exactly what you're making now. I think I would do that if I were the Hawks and I think that's a fair offer. Given the cap landscape, given the fact that like if Trey Young had mega trade value, I think he might be on another team. There's at least like a 50, 50 shot. He wouldn't be a hog right now. Maybe, maybe 30, 70, 70, that he's a Hawk. I don't know. Right. I think I would offer that now because I think they're set up to be good enough. I think that deal is fine. I think their financial situation is fine. I'd be more worried about extending Porzingis at, at a, like, even at like 28 million to 30 million year than I would be about Trey Young at that number. He's, he's fairly durable and I just think they're built really nicely around him. Like that's. If you're asking me like, where do I, if I'm going into negotiations, I'll offer that right now. Trey Young.

[Sam Amick]

Yeah. I mean when you were spitball and numbers, you know, four for 200 to me is kind of the higher end of that. And again, the value around the league is not really there because every team that looks at Trey and that doesn't have a roster that is constructed around him, just, you know, obviously he's going to nitpick and focus on what he doesn't do. And so I do think there's a win win here where they can maybe get something done. And while I know, Zach, that it's a little sacrilege to, you know, when Trey first came into the league, there was a lot of the Steph Curry comparisons right now. So I'm not trying to put those two guys in the same sentence, but I do look at that and I say, all right, Steph. You know, if Trey wants to keep modeling himself after Steph, then he's got to continue doing the things that Steph did, which is get in the weight room and add 15, 20 pounds, compete more on defense like Steph has. No one is ever expecting you to be that guy on that end of the floor. Klay Thompson always guarded the lead guards. Draymond Green has been a security blanket for Steph all this time. And the warriors have found a way to just extract all of the goodness out of Steph and what he can bring to the game. That is, I think, still a bit of a model for the Hawks and for Trey himself.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, this is going to be really interesting because, like I said, there's no timetable for it. They can. They can carry it into the year. I think the Daniels negotiations will be telling if they can strike a deal and what the number is. Ditto Porzingis. I also think the wild card here is the Hawks. I mean, this is like. I. God knows they're not going to talk to me about this, even off the record, but anytime a team has some good young players and some piece of Milwaukee Bucks draft equity, I just, like, I. I'm holding it out there as, like, if. If Giannis ever becomes available, I think they're as well positioned as anybody to make a run at him, and they won't want to do anything to jeopardize that. If they gave even a whisper that that's possible. And I don't know that they have or will, but I just think they're well set up and I would keep Trey young. Do we miss anybody?

[Sam Amick]

No. I mean, just get this out of my head. He just made me think of it. I mean, as you know, you know, Alex Sirazon, Giannis's agent, you know, was.

[Zach Lowe]

Almost a gm, was interviewed to be the gm, Right.

[Sam Amick]

So that's a little bit of, you know, there's some smoke there, without question. And like, we mentioned Clippers, Lakers, warriors, teams like that. Before that are sitting there kind of quietly pining for the honestes of the world. I'm with you that Atlanta should be in that group too.

[Zach Lowe]

I mean, if it's a trade, the Hawks can outbid those teams. I mean, just period. If it's. If he's just going to be an unrestricted free agent or just say I'm going to depress the trade market by saying I want to go there and nowhere else, that's a different story. Sam Amick, what can we promote this week? What do you got? You're a machine. What do we got coming, brother?

[Sam Amick]

I'm just happy you pulled me out of the Clippers world for a few minutes here. You know, Kawhi's got us digging on that front. I'm just getting ready for camp. I'm going to be doing a little Lakers, Clippers and Nuggets when camp comes around, go see if Joker finally has a supporting cast on the Denver side. We talked about Cam Johnson, but just getting rolling, you know, just. Just ready to do this thing. It's been a couple months now and ready to get back to it.

[Zach Lowe]

Sam Amick, it's delightful to see you. I always look forward to seeing you on the road. I hope it happens soon. I'll be moving around campus a little bit, but probably east more than more than west. Thanks for your time. Read them at the Athletic. Listen to me at the Athletic. Sam Amick, the one and only. Thank you, sir.

[Sam Amick]

Thank you, brother.

[Zach Lowe]

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[Zach Lowe]

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[Zach Lowe]

Learn [e-mail] all right, let's bring on a special guest. The head coach of the two time. Well, five time, but two times under him, Yukon Huskies Dan Hurley. How are you, sir?

[Dan Hurley]

Zach.

[Sam Amick]

Six.

[Zach Lowe]

Six. Look, I'm rusty.

[Dan Hurley]

Six since 99. So.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, I remember 99. I was watching that game in college, Khalid El Amin, that whole crew in 99. I was watching them. Them then be Duke. You are the author with Ian o' Connor of a book never Stop that's coming out. When? I have already read it. But when is it coming out?

[Dan Hurley]

End of September.

[Zach Lowe]

So when did you start? When did you decide to write this book? Like, when did this start? And I'm going to, it will become clear why I'm curious about that. When did this process start in your head?

[Dan Hurley]

Well, you know, you, I mean, the publishing companies, you know, you know, after he won the second championship, you know, they, they, you know, they become interested in you. You get these, you know, you get these proposals and you get your, your, your, your agent, you know, and different people, you know, suggesting that, you know, this is a pretty good time for you to do it. You know, I, I had the relationship with Ian. Ian covered me when I played. Unfortunately for him, he covered me when I played at Seaton Wall. He had to watch that shit. So, you know, he knew a lot of my story and, you know, and my background. And I think he was, he was heartbroken because he's a Marist grad. So when I didn't take the Marist job, he was kind of heartbroken on that. So that's, I think when he got my his antennas up with my coaching career, you know, but for me, you know, I was a, like, I've been a, I would say since college. I've developed a love of reading and, and books and learning and, you know, through the, My, my counselor that I met at Seaton Hall, Sister Katherine Waters, she introduced me to the Winner within, you know, by Pat Riley. I read that, you know, you know, at a pretty vulnerable time. And that's kind of what, you know, I, I, I love to read, you know, so. And I love books. So it was something I got excited about.

[Zach Lowe]

So this is happening then, during the famous Lakers flirtation, which opens the book. It's the first chapter of the book. Basically, we're going to get into Seton hall and your high school career and all that. But I'm an NBA guy first and foremost, so I got to start with the Lakers, obviously. So that was during the Finals. I mean, I, like, it's only a year and a. Like, more than like a year and a half ago. I remember vividly, like, where I was when I woke up in Boston and the story broke and what's going on. And as you can recall, Coach, there were all sorts of conspiracy theories. Is this just a leverage play? Is this all fake? Is Dan Hurley really interested in coaching the Lakers? Then there was like, a second level conspiracy. Did Dan Hurley actually go to Los Angeles to do an interview? Did anyone see Dan Hurley in, like, I saw that on Twitter. And so your entire first chapter feels like kind of a rebuttal to that, because it gets deep into the decision, but it gets into specifics. Like, I stayed at this hotel in Los Angeles. I had dinner at this restaurant with Rob Pelinka and his wife. I talked to Brad Stevens and Quinn Snyder and Billy Donovan about my decision. It's like a whole kind of rebuttal to the, like, oh, he wasn't really interested in it. And so I just sort of like, do you think back to that process a lot? Because. And it turns on. It turns in the end on Alex Caribbean almost, among other things. But, like, do you, do you, do you still look back at that and be like, man, that was wild. Or. Or I wonder if I'll ever have an opportunity, like, not in the NBA, but a marquee franchise like that.

[Dan Hurley]

Yeah, well, you know, Zach, I ended up watching more, more Lakers games this year than I probably, you know, have watched since, you know, Kobe and Shaq and the Showtime Lakers. Right. So. And, And I would. I go back to, you know, I go back to almost a year, you Know, like a year prior to having my first conversation with Rob Palenka about. About the Lakers job, I talked to him like, a year earlier about Jordan Hawkins and Andre Jackson, two guys on our 23 championship team. And, you know, I talked to Rob on the phone for probably, you know, 15 or 20 minutes about those two guys. And I remember, you know, calling Kamani Young and Luke Murray and a couple of people around me, you know, after hanging up with Rob and saying, wow, you know, like, I was really impressed, you know, by, you know, you know, Polanco with the. With the Lakers. Like, he was pretty detailed with the way he talk, with the way he spoke about my guys. So then when that Lakers thing came up a year later, like, I had this baseline of. Of respect for Rob, and that's what got me excited about the possibility. And for me, I've got a network. Any big decision that I've got to make or during the course of the season, I'm smart enough to stay connected with the people that I like to take advice from when I got to make big decisions, whether they're people in coaching or people in the media like Woj, you know, who anytime I've got to make a big decision, you know, in my life, career wise, yo, Woj is one of the people. One of the first calls I'll make.

[Zach Lowe]

Then they trade for Luca. What's your phone like that day when that happens? Like, you wake up or are you awake when it happens? I don't know if you're. If you're a night owl, if you're asleep when it happens, but what's your. Are you, like. Are you getting texts like, hey, man, this could have been you?

[Dan Hurley]

Yeah, I got some of those. I get some of those. But I'd say a lot of a majority of it is, it's. It's Lakers fans, you know, direct messaging you that you're the biggest moron. You know, look how stupid you are.

[Zach Lowe]

You got to close your account. You can prevent that from happening.

[Dan Hurley]

Yeah, as soon as I get off this, I think, because I'm sure they'll respond to this. But I would say, you know, while we're not having the season that, you know, that I thought I was going to have at UConn, now that trade goes down. And, yeah, I mean, you're getting. You're getting a lot of those messages, but then your. Your mind also probably, you know, you know, goes there a little bit. Like, you know, man, you could have. You could have coached LeBron and Luca on the same team.

[Zach Lowe]

You Say in the book, later in the book, you talk about having thoughts after last season, which ended with the second round loss. Generally, like, the. The 3P dreams didn't really materialize. You talk about how you thought about taking a year off or taking a gap year or even resigning as head coach of UConn. And then after that, in the book, you talk, you. You reiterate, like, oh, no, I still want to go to the NBA at some point when you come, when UConn administrators read that, are they going to be like, dude, really? And. And it. Like that. Is that. Is that like a firm thing? Like, you really. That's still like a box. You want to check for sure.

[Dan Hurley]

You know, it's weird. I think, you know, Zach, it's like they're. They're, you know, maybe. Maybe eight months ago. That could also be maybe, you know, the way I felt, you know, then or four months ago. You know, like, I think as human beings, I think, you know, you feel differently over time about different things. I think, you know, for me, you know, that time where, you know, where I'm considering, you know, taking a. Taking a year off, I think, you know, number one, I've been in this basketball world probably in a really intense way since I was five years old. You know, like, my whole life has been basketball, I think, since me and Bob, you know, got out of the crib. You know, we've been in every St. Anthony practice and every St. Anthony huddle and every St. Anthony locker room, living and dying with every season that my dad ever coached until we got a chance to play for him and experience that, you know, all the way through to, you know, this. This past season ending. And obviously, I've had a ton of ups and downs in my coaching career, you know, but I think when you go back to back championships, there's so many directions you're getting, you know, pulled in, you know, that drain a little bit of your energy. You know, like, your off seasons are shorter. You've got more demands on your time, there's more appearances to make and things to do. That way, you couple that, you know, maybe fatigue with, you know, the nil and the portal and how transactional that is. You also add on top of that, you know, obviously, I had a tumultuous year. You know, I was, you know, I was deconstructed. My coaching style was obviously, you know, a lot went on that, that, you know, that. That. That put me in that mindset for a couple days. But then, you know, in the end, I think that what, what was this? The deciding factor for me was I was likely not going to be able to coach UConn again. You know, it wasn't like they were going to, you know, let Kamani have the job or Luke have the job for a year and then, you know, just do interim and just give me a year to relax. I mean, the fact that I could no longer lead the Huskies was why, you know, I was able to, you know, just kind of get myself back together again and move forward.

[Zach Lowe]

But the NBA still, still on your radar, Are you saying, like, that's something that was four months ago and you wrote this book and that's good. That's going to be an evolving, evolving thing.

[Dan Hurley]

I mean, you know, listen, I don't. Maybe later, you know. You know, you know, I don't know that it's necessarily a fit for the way that I coach and the way that I like to be a coach of 18, 19, 22 year olds. You know, where, you know, where I can set the standard, you know, every day where, you know, where you're truly in college basketball. I think, you know, the head coach sets the tone, he sets the standard, and then the players have to live up to that standard. I think there's a lot more control you have, even though nil and the portal, you know, have obviously, you know, diminished some of that control. But I think, you know, the amount of control you have on your fate as a college coach and, you know, me being a better fit for coaching a 19 year old, you know, makes me think that maybe when I'm in my mid-60s and I've burned off a lot of this intensity and fire and maybe, and I'm at a different energy level or mental space, I could do it, but I don't think so.

[Zach Lowe]

It's funny, you know, not funny, but intensity and fire. There are good chunks of the book that are about your internal suffering, I would say, based on your perfectionism, your fear of losing, but also like legit kind of coming to grips or thinking about your anger, your anger toward officials, your anger towards opposing fans. And obviously last season culminates with the, the, the. The videotaped. You know, I hope they don't fuck you like they fucked us. And, and you talk in the book. It's. It's like reading the book is like. Is like listening to someone struggle with what, on the one hand they consider a problem about themselves, but on the other hand they consider some part of their fundamental nature that makes them who they are. So. And you talk about your wife Telling you, like, several times in the book. And, like, several times. And Coach K. Telling you, like, dude, you gotta chill out. This is embarrassing on the sidelines. Your wife's like, you gotta chill out. But. And you want to, but it seems like you also kind of don't want to. So, like, we're like, like, do you want to get better with the refs? Because that's the kind of thing, like, in the NBA, you'd be getting calls from Adam Silver being like, dude, you got. You can't. You can't do that well.

[Dan Hurley]

And I get that. I actually hear that a lot, Zach. It's like, I mean, some really smart analysts have, you know, when they've critiqued my coach, you know, criticize it. They've. They've. I think one of the critiques or criticisms has been, hey, act more like an NBA coach, you know, that is not on the officials as much as you are as a college coach. But then my response to that is like, they would be in line behind several of the players who are literally, you know, like, in the ref's ear after every possession. Like, a lot of times a head coach in the NBA doesn't have a chance to get at the ref because he's got, you know, a couple of his players after that possession, want to foul, want to travel. You know, it's just. It's, you know, you in college, I think you have the. You have the coach that's interacting with the officials exclusively, and the players say next to nothing. Where in the NBA, I think it's flipped. It's a reverse. Where do I go from here? I mean, I get pulled in a lot of different directions there. I've got an identity that's been very successful for me, and it's worked for me. I run into people, old school coaches whose coaches in the. In the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, the 80s, Big east, you know, the. You know, those early Big East G days, the. The Bob Huggins, those types of coaches, like, I resemble. My coaching style is more like those coaches, but those are the coaches that I idolized, you know, as a young player and as a young coach. So, you know, I would say if I could just be able to, you know, get on and off the court without the fan, you know, like the two rings, Baldi, like, those types of things. If I could avoid those, it would be. Those are the ones. I think I've got to be able to walk away from maybe some of the fan stuff.

[Zach Lowe]

But you. You seem to also like that. And you're quite proud of the baldy insult. Was it a Creighton fan that you called. Called baldy because. And you have a whole very humorous. It's like, it's like a comedian comes out and starts writing the book. Book a whole a hold aside about why you as a bald man are allowed to call this guy bald. You seem to feed off the fans too.

[Dan Hurley]

Yeah, it's like the, you know, Larry David, you know, like the Larry David of, of college coaches in a way. You know, like, you know, again, he was the gentleman was. Would he waited such a long time for that interaction, you know, like it's literally an 8 or 10 minute wait for me to get to the tunnel after the post game handshake, the post game tv, you know, you know, kind of the half a victory lap and then he's still waiting there. I felt like he, he deserved something. Then again, there's a difference between being baldy and balding. I'm balding. But in the end, karma got me, you know, you know, not too, not too much, you know, later down the line, I had to see that same Creighton game. And for running my mouth on the road, you know, karma got me in the Big east tournament. And we ended up, you know, losing to those guys and getting dunked on, you know, at the buzzer, which was why, you know, even, you know, when, when their player dunked the ball at the end of that Big east tournament game. And there was a, a whole scene on social media after that. I wasn't really mad at, at, at big Mac, at McDermott or, you know, even the player or Creighton. In a weird way, I felt like I kind of got what I deserved for being such an asshole in Omaha.

[Zach Lowe]

This is going to be my last thing about the refs. And I have an. I have. I got to call you out on it. It's a form of coach hypocrisy that I almost respect because it's all about your, it's about how your desire to win trumps everything else. So when you're coaching Wagner and Rhode island, okay, and you run into the power schools, Duke, Kentucky, whoever, and there's a call you don't like, as you'd say, well, against your team. Say, well, you wouldn't call that against Duke or Kentucky. You're sort of alleging favoritism of the blue blood programs. And then later in the book, when you get to UConn job and you win national titles and you become a blue blood program, you have this. It's, I think it's at the Maui Invitational in 2024. Liam McNeely gets called for over the back and you write in the book like, we're the defending champs, like, you got to respect us more than that. You got to give us that call. I'm like, oh, wait, wait a second, which way is it? But I guess which way it is is whatever is going to help Dan Hurley's team win.

[Dan Hurley]

Yeah, I mean, listen, I accept, like any dealing with the officials, right? Like relating your relationship with the officials, like your ability to work the officials, whether that is through charm or through, you know, rage and intensity. I mean, that is part of coaching you. You could, you could say that I absolutely suck at it, that I am really bad at the art of working officials. But to say that that's not part of what we do as coaches is that that's, you know, that's an aspect of the art of coaching that again, I could. You could. I won't disagree with you that I suck at it at times.

[Zach Lowe]

Well, I didn't say you suck at it. I almost respect the change in philosophy as your career arc evolved.

[Dan Hurley]

Well, it's whatever works for me. I mean, in that. And listen, I experienced it. When you do, when you coach at Wagner or when you coach at Rhode island and you're playing in a by game on the road. I mean, when I played at Texas A and M as a first year coach at Wagner, that refs, when I wanted to just ask them a question, they wouldn't even look at me. It was like I didn't even exist in the universe. They wouldn't even almost acknowledge that I was at the game. And then. So now when you are the coach at you and then like when you take over at UConn and Jay and Villanova are the premier program in college basketball and you're trying to like, you know, rebuild Yukon and climb your way up back towards, you know, closer to the top of that mountain. You know, when you're experiencing those games and you're watching them after the fact, you do feel like, you know, you're not getting the same whistle that Villanova is getting in those games. And then part of you, I think, you know, believes that they've earned that. Now in the moment, you're fighting for that, you know, but in your mind, like, you know, once you've established yourself as the as championship level program, the premier program in college basketball, you know, you feel like there's a certain respect that you, that you should get, you know, from the officials and that you you earn that, and that. That's part of what you get by being the best.

[Zach Lowe]

Hey, I. I respect it. I, I. Well, it's actually, this is kind of a bookend podcast for me, because almost exactly a year ago, I had J.J. redick on my podcast to talk about the Lakers, and I got laid off immediately after that by espn. And JJ Jokes with me that he got me fired. Something I did, an interview got me fired. And now a year later, I have the almost Lakers coach on. But I was part of the. One of the great joys of being laid off for me was I got laid off right in the middle of a Mets playoff run, and I rekindled my Mets fandom. But now when I watch, I watch through the eyes of a fan, and, like, the umps are against us or, like, can you just give us that call? Like, we're struggling. I know. It was, like, a couple inches outside. Could you just give it to us? I get it. All right, enough. Enough ref talk. You're about four years older than I am, and I grew up in Connecticut, and I grew up a fan of, like, the Big east, the old school, Big East, Georgetown, Syracuse, Seton Hall, UConn, St. John's I remember rooting, like, rooting hard for Seton hall to win the national title when they played Michigan. We were Robinson and all that. Like, that's my. That's my roots as a basketball fan. I remember watching you at Seton hall, and obviously, I watched your brother at Duke. I was just an idiot teenager then. I had no idea the emotional struggles you were going through at Seton Hall. And the first part of the book is about that and about how they shaped your life. I don't even remember you stepping away from the team at Seton hall to deal with the stress and pressure. And. And I hope maybe you can elaborate on this. I don't want to spoil the book, but, like, not only did you step away from the team, you didn't tell them what you were doing, and you just essentially locked the door to your dorm room and vanished from society. Maybe, maybe talk a little bit about, was it basketball pressure? Was it life pressure? What was happening to you, and what did you learn from it?

[Dan Hurley]

Yeah, I mean, listen, you know, Zach, that was. Yeah, that was a tough time. I mean, it was also true. This was, you know, this was the early 90s. You know, there. There was, you know, big stigma, you know, at that time around. Around mental health and around, you know, having a vulnerability about yourself to. To. To ask for help, especially with men, you know, and for Me. It was a real simple thing. It was, you know, it was hearing those whispers early on as a player, you know, you're, you know, you know, Bobby's better. He's not as good as his brother. You know, he's only won this award or he only has this scholarship because he's a Hurley, you know, so it starts off as whispers, and then, you know, obviously, you get to a program, you know, like, you know, like Seton hall, and you're a college freshman, and your brother, you know, your brother is having historical success. He's not just, like. He's not just like, a really good player at Duke. Like, he's like. He's like the greatest point guard in the history of college basketball at Duke. On basically the Beatles of college basketball at that time, which is like, Christian Laitner, Grant Hill, coach K. And my brother, you know, and, you know, and for me, it just got to the point, you know, just relative to the identity that I had shaped and how important basketball was to our family and in Jersey City growing up there, that I had no identity beyond basketball. So once I started to play, like, the levels of that, I felt like, had gotten to, you know, a pretty dark place for me. And, you know, it was like the kind of like the perfect storm. We had played, and then the next day we had a day off from the team. So. And back then, there were no cell phones. There were, you know, there was basically. There was a phone in the dorm, and I just basically, you know, I hold up for a couple days until, you know, until people started getting worried about, where is this guy? He has not gone to class. He has not gone to study hall, you know, and then, you know, it was during winter break, so there were no other students there. So then, you know, I was fortunate that my. My mom came and started banging on the door.

[Zach Lowe]

You also were as many college freshmen, college students were. Would do. You were carousing a little bit, and, And. And. And you talk in the book a lot about. About drinking and health and the ups and downs of that. There is also an aside in there that I had to ask about, but you just sort of say it and leave it. You crashed a golf cart at some point at Seton Hall. I need. I was like, I need to know more about the golf cart crash.

[Dan Hurley]

Yeah. Oh, man. So, yeah, I would say, you know, my dad, he ran a tight ship.

[Zach Lowe]

Oh, yeah.

[Dan Hurley]

I mean, he ran a tight ship.

[Zach Lowe]

I mean, our fathers are similar, by the way. My dad is like a coaching lifer and like. Like a hard ass. The likes of which kind of, kind of doesn't exist anymore.

[Dan Hurley]

Yeah, yeah, no doubt. I mean, you, you, the ship was tight. I mean, listen, as a high, you know, did I, you know, did I, you know, did me and Bob sneak out, you know, the, the, the basement window, you know, at times, as at, in high school, and run around the streets of Jersey City for a couple hours when we shouldn't have? You know, probably in high school, we probably did that, Zachary. But when I got to college, man, I just, just all that freedom, you know, I, I kind of just, I went from all that structure to all that freedom and I just kind of lost my mind. And, you know, just growing up in Jersey City, you, you had a skill set that you, you would be able to start smaller vehicles, you know, with a mail key and kind of jig it so that you can, you know, potentially start up a security car. And yeah, that, that the next probably 10 minutes, you know, things unraveled from there and I made a very un. Jersey City like, move, you know, once I saw the sirens.

[Zach Lowe]

What was the move?

[Dan Hurley]

You know, the book is called Never Stop. Right. So, you know, I guess for me there, you know, with, with campus security, I probably should not have stopped running at that point because I, you know, I started running distance as a young kid. My dad, I think, you know, built up my mental toughness as a child with Bob by putting us in cross country and having us run a lot. You know, just run a lot. Run a lot, A lot of distance running to become mentally tougher. And, you know, that that night I definitely could have outrun, you know, the Seton hall campus security.

[Zach Lowe]

Never Stop is also about your coaching journey. And I don't want to spoil the book, but it's, it's. To describe it as unlikely would be an understatement from high school coaching, making so little money that you had to, you, you go to this, this sort of centerpiece story of the book is you're at a gas station and you, you have no cash, your credit cards are maxed out. You literally cannot pay for the gas. You have to ask, you have to ask people who come in for cash to cover the gas. And now you're the coach of Yukon turning down a six year, $70 million offer from the Lakers. I, I, in all of that high school coaching and Wagner and Uri and all this, you have something in there that so resonated with me as a fan of, of basketball and college basketball. Less so now, but when I was a kid, for sure, you talk about being at Wagner and losing to Robert Morris in whatever conference. I don't even remember what conference it was, but the conference tournament and in a conference that's only getting one team into the NCAA tournament, the automatic bid and that's it. You talk about that as the most tense experience you've ever had as a coach. Is that, is that still true? Because I can imagine it being true. Like everything rides on that.

[Dan Hurley]

Yeah, I mean, I would say the Final Four, the national championship game, you know, which really does feel like a zero sum game at that point, because, you know, getting to the national championship game and losing it, you know, that, that's a tough one, being so close. But that was, that was a breeze compared to one bid semifinal, you know, you know, a chance to, you know, to play, to get to March Madness, which is really at that level. The, the only way that you're going to get attention during the year, with the exception of maybe going and winning a buy game, which is next to impossible to do.

[Zach Lowe]

So.

[Dan Hurley]

Yeah, I mean, you're in those games and you know, shoot around feels different. You could feel the anxiety with the group, with the staff, with the players. The ball feels like it's got butter on it. I mean, the turnovers go up, the not being able to remember out unders and things that are deeply embedded, that are also almost automated at that point of the year for your team all go out the window and it just, it, it turns into, you know, like a mud fight in a UFC cage.

[Zach Lowe]

Let's go rapid fire some NBA topics because I know you got to go. I don't want to keep you. What have you thought of Donovan Klingen so far in the NBA?

[Dan Hurley]

I think, you know, I think he got off to, you know, a pretty good start. I think that, that situation right now, obviously with, with the trade of Ayton or, you know, I guess the release or, or however that went with the opportunity to start at center here. You know, he's a, he's a unique defensive player that I think, you know, if he locks in right now, he's, he, he's, he's a potent, you know, he's one of those guys, I think that has the ability to develop new skills rapidly and become, you know, I'm not saying that he's going to look like, like the, like the joker like overnight here, but I think this is a guy that's going to develop shooting, develop passing, so he could play in this modern NBA, you know, But I think what I, what we've all told him this summer is like, you get these windows when you get drafted to establish yourself as like a starting NBA center, you know, and he's seeing that window right now, and he's got to take advantage of it because NBA organizations, if you don't show them quickly, you know, they, they move on pretty quickly.

[Zach Lowe]

Have you talked to Stefan Castle about Wembanyama and has he told you, like, what, what this guy is like, what playing with him is like?

[Dan Hurley]

Yeah, he just shakes his head and, and you know, Steph has gotten better at communicating, but he's not much of a talker. He's a doer, but he, you know, freak alien. And it was awesome to see, you know, Steph, I mean, Steph, you know, you could see it, I think, when pre draft last year, is thinking like a, you know, Drew Holiday type of NBA guard. I think just, you know, he's just a little bit taller and obviously a long way to go before he can get to that level. But you could see it was probably easier for him to score, you know, in the NBA than it was for him in college, you know, but I think people forget if you just locked in on his last 10 games at UConn, you know, he was our best player, probably the, you know, the last 10 or 12 games. His numbers and everything jumped that last third of the year. He was a monster.

[Zach Lowe]

Where were now this is in the book, but I'll just, I'll just ask you anyway. Where were you during Duke, Kentucky Elite 8, 1991? The Latener Guy? The Latener shot.

[Dan Hurley]

Crushing beers in, in Boland hall, the freshman dorm. Just crushing beers with my roommates going running up and down the hallway when that shot went in. Because it, I mean, it looked over. You know, obviously it looked over and I thought about, you know, hanging out there and, and going to, you know, going to the game. But, you know, just. That would have been a bad look, I think. You know, I think maybe a player would do that today, but back then, players would not have done that to their team. They would have. You just get back on the bus and you go with your team, you failed, you lost, go home, your season's over, you're not making public appearances or, you know, so.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, I, I only asked because, well, it's interesting, but also, you know, look, I can't claim to have watched every game of every professional sport ever. I'm sure there are soccer games that, that are all time great games. Even the France, Argentina World Cup Final from the last World cup was like I was falling out of my chair. That game is still the greatest game I've ever seen in any sport. I. I don't know if I was the right age at the right time, the right kind of sports fan. I don't know if it was the back and forth of, like, one shot after another. I don't know if it was, like the. The underdog nature of this team, Kentucky, that had just come off probation against, like, Coach K and Duke and like, these, you know, I. In my mind, these pretty boy guys that play it. Dude, it's the greatest game I've ever seen and I've never watched it since. I would like to. Have you watched it since.

[Dan Hurley]

Yeah, well, I did. And because I think I saw it on. I probably watched on ESPN Classic a couple times. And I mean, just the game that my brother played there was, you know, was ridiculous. And I was able to, you know, like, I was at. I was at the old Meadowlands, you know, when they, you know, went. When they played Yukon, you know, in the Elite Eight, you know, I was there for that. So obviously an amazing win for Duke, a crushing loss for UConn. I was in Denver for the UNLV, you know, just destruction of Duke in that game. And you know, what that experience felt like for my brother and Duke and the family and Coach K. And I was in Indy the next year, you know, for the epic UNLV rematch. That incredible upset. So, like, I was at a lot. And then on the negative side, I think, for the dookies, I was at the Yukon. You know, the. The Yukon game. I'm looking out in the practice facility to make sure I get the year right. 2004, the second of the six, right. The. In. In San Antonio with that, like, awesome game with, you know, Ben Gordon, J.J. redick, America, a Mecca, Okafor. I mean, that. And I sat next to, you know, my brother in the Duke section for that game.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, to me, it's still the greatest game I've ever seen. You mentioned in the book all the people who reach both. People you knew, people you saw in person, people you didn't know who reached out to you when the Lakers decision was pending, from Governor Ned Lamont to random people who see you at a Billy Joel concert and are like, you gotta stay. It's Yukon, too. Old friends who run into you on the street and say, dude, you're not. You're from Jersey City. You can't go. You can't go Hollywood. And I asked you before we came on, I was like, who's. Who's the most. I mean, some of those are expected, right? The coaches are going to reach out. You're going to reach out to the coaches. The governor reaching out is not entirely unexpected. Who's the one that, that reached out in whatever capacity where you were like, whoa, this, this person cares or like, how'd this guy even get my number? Or this person from my life? How do they even find me? Like, was there somebody like that?

[Dan Hurley]

I tried to rack, you know, I, I tried to, I tried to rack my brain. I actually went through, back. Tried to go back through my phone and check, but I, I think the only thing I came up with was like the multitude of, of, of people like, you know, in, in the NBA or, or I would say like the multitude of people that wanted a job with the Lakers with me before I had taken the job. You know, like the 8, 10, 12 different people that say, you know, like, hey, I'd be a great fit in la. I know that, you know, you know, I, you know, I get, you know that I would say the people like that, that. And that's happens. That was multiplied with the Lakers thing. That happens a lot in college. Like before, before I actually officially took the UConn job when I was leaving roadie. You start to get like the college lifers that start crushing you on the phone and then you, you know, I would say that was multiplied like 5x8x10x with the Lakers with NBA lifers.

[Zach Lowe]

So I, I told this to jj. I think even on the, the, the now infamous last podcast I did at espn, like, I was getting that from NBA coaches being like, hey, do you know jj? Like, I know you did some podcasts with jj. Like, can you hook me up with JJ or put in a good word and I just have a blanket, like, I'm not, I'm not bothering him. And I was like, if that's happening to me, I can't even imagine what your phone is like. All right, last question. Open ended. We kind of sped through Seton Hall. We kind of sped through the high school coaching part of your career at St. Benedict's a school that I know quite well. By the way. I loved your animus towards Lawrenceville and Joachim Noah. That was fantastic. Just. Is there a part of this book that you wanted to make sure people know about or that you wanted to talk more about or just something about why you wrote this book that you want to get across to people before I let you go?

[Dan Hurley]

Yeah, I just think for me, and it's, it's kind of strange Coming from me, who, you know, I didn't exactly excel as a college student, you know, but I would say, you know, one of the most impactful things for me at that, at that time at Seton hall, you know, I think, you know, my life is, you know, any success I've been able to have, you know, in my life, I'm a byproduct of like, my faith, you know, as with my faith and in my Christianity and then like the, the family foundation, you know, just like the household that I grew up with or grew up in. And then, you know, the family, the gift of family that my wife Andrew has given me, you know, with her love and my two sons, Danny and Andrew. So like, you know, my faith in my family and how that's been my foundation. But then, you know, for me, like this project, it's, it's. I put a, A lot of work into it, like a lot of work to try to make this, you know, a book that could have some impact again, reading and learning, you know, and books were introduced to me really, you know, with Sister Catherine at Seton hall at a time, you know, where it's had a great impact on my life. Whether it's been memoirs or biographies, have been a lot of times inspirational or motivational, like books on leadership and personal development books. I think it made me a better coach and a better man and a better husband and father. You know, I think, like great sports books about excellent teams and world class coaches and athletes like, you know, they've helped me develop a culture at the different places I've coached that have had championship level success. You know, the books about spirituality have helped me develop a stronger faith. So I think for me, this wasn't like one of those things where it's like you win championships. It's an opportunity as a money grab to go and write a book and check that box. You know, for me, I hope that the book is impactful and I hope people that read it say, like, you know, you contributed a real good book.

[Zach Lowe]

Yeah, I will say, you know, there's. For the basketball fan and the UConn fan, there's a lot of inside basketball stuff that people are going to crave, like, oh, shooting half court shots before practice. He made this crack at this player running stairs and all this and all the stuff with the refs. But I would say, to your point, a lot of this book is like wrenching to read. It's, it's painful in parts to read. Like the pain, the, the, the ups and downs of your life are like, very, very stark and very. And the downs are. Are pretty down. And I think it's just sort of a reminder. Like, you know, people think. People look at successful people and say, well, that's inevitable, or they're. They're blessed with something special. Or, like, it must have been a smooth journey all the way around. And it's like, this was not. This was not a smooth journey. And there were lots of times where it could have gone real, real bad. I mean, and, like, I don't want to spoil it, but, like, as bad as it could possibly get. And I think there's.

[Dan Hurley]

Zach, when they send it to you, I don't want to. Just for me, it's important. Like, when I read the chapters about, you know, like, the. The. The times in high school or college or like that, you know, the. The tough times of, you know, family life when you're struggling financially and you're. And you're struggling in your marriage partially because of the finances and because of your career's not going the way you want, or. I'm dealing with that time at Seton Hall. That's very dark. Dark depression. Rereading that part of this book when you're going through the publishing process was tough for me. I'm taking a step back. It put me in a little bit of a funk after I had to kind of reread it and make changes to the. To the manuscript. So, yeah, like, rereading it during this process kind of brought me back. And, yeah, that wasn't always enjoyable.

[Zach Lowe]

Well, I just mentioned it because it's human. And, you know, in sports, as in many other areas of life, we sort of build up these mythological gods out of players and coaches, and that's just not real. And what's real is what's in the book. So it's called Never Stop Life Leadership and what It Takes to Be Great. Dan Hurley with Ian o'. Connor. Dan, you've been generous with your time. I appreciate it. It's a great book. I enjoy. I brought it on vacation with me. I read it. It was awesome. I got notes in here and everything. Good luck this season at UConn. And you know what? I'm actually going to. I'm going to have to make the drive up to storage to visit you and Coach Oriemma and actually do it and hang out for a day or two. So I appreciate your time. Everyone. Get the book. Coach Dan Hurley. Thank you, sir.

[Dan Hurley]

Zach, Appreciate you, man. It's an honor.

[Zach Lowe]

All right, that's it for today's edition of the Zach Lowe Show. Thanks to Sam Amick of the Athletic. Thanks to Dan Hurley for spending some time with us. Thanks to Jesse, Victoria and Cerutty on production. Thanks to you all for watching or listening wherever you get your podcast. We'll be back later this week, probably Thursday, with another edition of the Zach Lowe Show. Maybe Mets Corner may be involved. Who knows? I'm sad. Thanks for listening.