The Milwaukee Bucks are the reigning NBA Cup champions, and their title offense got off to a great start as well. The Bucks beat the Chicago Bulls 126-110 at Fiserv Forum on Friday to get to 1-0. That’s now eight wins in a row in the competition for the Bucks, but their assistant coach, Darvin Ham, is on an even more impressive run.
Ham is now 15-0 as a coach in the NBA Cup, having led the Los Angeles Lakers to glory in the first edition in 2023. His teams have been unbeatable in the competition, and he was asked about the secret to his success on the Hoop Genius Podcast.
“Gamble on what you know,” Ham said. “I know basketball. And so in that regard, what I mean by that is I know the preparation it takes. I know what you got to have, the pieces you got to have to be successful in that regard. Not just hearsay or what the roster looks like, or whatever.”
Ham’s tenure with the Lakers might have ended in disappointment, but there was a time when things were going well. He led the team all the way to the 2023 Western Conference Finals in his first season at the helm.
Ham followed that up by winning what was then called the In-Season Tournament in December later that year. They beat the Indiana Pacers 123-109 in the final in Las Vegas to become the first-ever winners of the competition.
The trophy wasn’t enough for Ham to keep his job, though. He was let go in May 2024 after the Denver Nuggets swept the Lakers in the first round of the playoffs.
Ham wouldn’t be unemployed for too long, as the Bucks brought him in to be the top assistant under head coach Doc Rivers in June 2024. He had been an assistant in Milwaukee under Mike Budenholzer prior to joining the Lakers and had helped the team win the NBA championship in 2021.
Ham then played his part in the Bucks’ adding more silverware to the trophy cabinet as they beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 97-81 in the cup final in 2024. With all of his success in the competition, it should come as little surprise that the 52-year-old thinks the NBA made a great decision to introduce it.
“I think that Cup is one of the best things that the NBA has ever thought of because it raises the competitive level of what we do,” Ham stated. “What would be just a ho-hum yawning stretch of the season. You get into December, January, and coach can attest to this, those are what we call the dog days of the season… They putting banners up for that too and get that trophy, but a nice big fat check that comes along with it.
“It intrigues the players to go out there and compete their a**es off, man,” Ham continued. “I think it’s good for the game. And you see some of those games when that court is different, the play is at a different level, and it’s the closest thing you can get to playoff basketball in the first third of the season… So I think it’s been a great thing for our league and I’m just blessed, right time, right place, right team.”
Ham is now aiming for a personal three-peat. The 7-4 Bucks will play their second game in the NBA Cup soon when they take on the Charlotte Hornets at Fiserv Forum on Friday at 8 PM ET. Prior to that game, they will take on the Hornets at the Spectrum Center on Wednesday at 7 PM in a normal regular-season game.
