Getty Los Angeles Lakers head coach Darvin Ham with Austin Reaves.
Things have been going downhill for the Los Angeles Lakers since their NBA In-Season Tournament win in December. The team has gone 3-9 since winning the tournament and their overall record has dropped to 17-18, which currently places them as the 10th seed in the Western Conference.
There was a lot of hype surrounding the Lakers in the offseason and without any major injuries to star players, it’s difficult to find excuses for the poor play. It appears that the blame is going to fall on the shoulders of head coach Darvin Ham. According to Shams Charania and Jovan Buha of The Athletic, Ham could be on the hot seat right now.
“There’s currently a deepening disconnect between Darvin Ham and the Lakers locker room, six sources with direct knowledge of the situation say, raising questions about the head coach’s standing,” Charania and Buha wrote in a January 4 column. “The people spoke with The Athletic on condition of anonymity so that they could speak freely on the matter. Those sources have described that the disjointedness between the coach and team has stemmed from the extreme rotation and starting lineup adjustments recently from Ham, leading to a fluctuating rhythm for several players across the roster.”
Ham has used 10 different starting lineups this season. Some of that has been due to injury but many of the changes have been to try and fix things. Regardless, what the coach has been doing hasn’t been working.
There’s currently a growing disconnect between Darvin Ham and Lakers locker room stemming from disjointedness around rotation and adjustments, per me and @jovanbuha.
Story at @TheAthletic on Lakers, losers of 3 in row, nine of 12 and now under .500:
Los Angeles Lakers Can’t Afford to Be Patient
What works against Darvin Ham is that the Lakers’ championship window is very small. LeBron James just turned 39 and isn’t going to be an elite player forever. This season could be the best chance he has to be one of the two best players on a championship team.
If he’s frustrated with what Ham is doing, that won’t bode well for the coach’s future. It’s clear that the Lakers are trying to send a message to Ham with this latest leak. The team doesn’t like what he’s doing and he’s officially on notice. If things don’t turn around soon, it’ll be interesting to see what the Lakers do. Los Angeles doesn’t have an assistant on staff with full-time NBA head coaching experience so they don’t have a logical replacement for Ham if they decide to fire him.
Darvin Ham Credits Injuries for Struggles
While Anthony Davis and LeBron James have mostly been able to stay healthy, the same can’t be said for the team’s role players. Gabe Vincent has only played in five games this season while Jarred Vanderbilt has played less than half of the games.
Darvin Ham thinks the simple fix for the Lakers is to get healthy.
“We’ve got to get healthy,” Ham said during his January 3 postgame press conference. “… And once you get healthy, guys got to get back into rhythm and we’ve got to find a cohesive unit, a total cohesive rotation that we can go with. When you’re dealing with different guys being in and out of the lineup that frequently, it’s damn-near impossible to find a rhythm. That’s just being real. That’s no slight on anybody.”
The injury excuse might not be enough to save Ham’s job if the Lakers don’t improve soon.
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Lakers Leak Troubling Insight on Head Coach Darvin Ham: Report