Darvin Ham didn’t see a happy ending to his stint as Lakers head coach, being ousted after two seasons in charge as the team made the Playoffs both years as the No. 7 seed. Ham was criticized heavily for his lack of play-calling by fans, a pattern proven by Ham not drawing up plays out of timeouts.
Lakers guard Austin Reaves liked a meme on social media mocking Ham for once writing ‘Contest w/o fouling’ on the clipboard instead of drawing up a play.
One of the biggest criticisms against Ham from fans all season had been his lack of play-calling, letting LeBron James, Reaves, or D’Angelo Russell run a freelance offense. The high caliber of the players did create success, but a championship team cannot be built on those principles.
Anthony Davis verbalized the complaints against Ham’s tactical nuance after the Lakers lost Game 2 to the Nuggets, blowing a 20-point lead in the process.
“We have stretches where we just don’t know what we’re doing on both ends of the floor and those the ones that cost us.”
It was later confirmed that Davis saying this out loud spelled doom for Ham, with Davis’ inputs being among the primary reasons for Ham’s firing.
“When they chose to fire Darvin Ham, I was told that one of the many, many considerations was that it was pretty evident that AD was not on board anymore with Darvin and they know, like everybody else, that AD has a history of having asked for trades in the past. That’s how he got to the Lakers from New Orleans. “The last thing they wanted was for AD to be frustrated with the situation.”
Once the players believe the coach isn’t tactically sound, there’s no coming back from that. Hopefully, the next Lakers coach has a penchant for running plays to organize this team.
LeBron James Not Involved In Lakers Coaching Search
It’s been heavily rumored that the Lakers are about to sign JJ Redick as their new head coach, with the 15-year veteran having no coaching experience. His relationship with LeBron James is considered to be one of the factors in his contention for the role, leading most to believe James is trying to plant his podcast co-host in the role.
Brian Windhorst reported a few weeks ago that James was keeping his input out of the Lakers coaching search, a sentiment backed by Shams Charania today.
“Yeah, I’m told LeBron James is not involved in the Lakers head coaching search… LeBron James made it clear, this is the organization’s decision. He’s had no conversations with the Lakers about JJ Reddick, his podcast partner. He’s had no conversation with JJ about that position as well… The bottom line with LeBron James is this. If he was making the decisions for the Lakers, Ty Lue would have been the head coach in 2019. Kyrie Irving would be his point guard if he was running the team if he was making the decisions.”
The Lakers might be better off getting Davis’ input in this situation as the star center will enter the first year of his new supermax extension with the Lakers soon.
James is a free agent and could leave the franchise as soon as this summer, so appeasing Davis with the coaching hire might be a bigger long-term priority.
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