Dribble Handoff: Dan Hurley, Nate Oats among college basketball coaches in line to make jump to NBA

Hurley said no this time, but he remains on our short list of potential college-to-NBA coaching candidates

By David Cobb Jun 14, 2024 at 10:27 am ET• 7 min read

UConn coach Dan Hurley's flirtation with the Los Angeles Lakers is over, putting an end to a dramatic saga that threatened to wrestle a college basketball coaching giant away to the NBA. Not since Larry Brown left Kansas for the San Antonio Spurs job in 1988 has the coach of the reigning national champions left for an NBA gig.

But plenty of other college basketball coaches have been lured to the NBA since then. The most recent was John Beilein, who made it less than a year with the Cleveland Cavaliers following a great run at Michigan. Others, such as Brad Stevens, have done it and enjoyed success.

However, recent history shows the transition from college basketball to the NBA is not easy. Take Billy Donovan for example. He won back-to-back national championships at Florida in 2006 and 2007. But in nine years as an NBA coach, he's gone deeper than the first round of the playoffs just once. And Donovan's NBA stint has actually been more successful than the professional attempts made by colleagues such as Beilein and Fred Hoiberg.

Despite the mixed track record of the college-to-NBA coaching pipeline, there will inevitably be others who catch the attention of professional franchises in the years ahead.