Darvin Ham, now back with the Bucks as an assistant, admitted to Marc J. Spears of Andscape that he was stunned in May when the Lakers fired him after two seasons.
“To do as well as I did, I swear to God, anywhere else I’m probably looking at an extension with what I did,” Ham said. “I’m not talking about feelings. I’m talking actual facts. They go from not making it to the playoffs to the final four in the NBA, the conference finals. And then you win the in-season tournament, navigate through all the injuries and win both of your play-in games to get to the playoffs. People always talk about us losing to Denver, but they never talk about how we got to Denver.”
Ham received criticism for his coaching methods and in-game strategy and there were reports the team’s stars felt the same way. Ham was blindsided by the negativity.
“I’m not a mudslinger and I’m not going to wait until I’m 51 to become one,” Ham said. “You feel like you did enough to sustain in one spot. I felt like I did that. I get it. The franchise I’m working for, the expectations can be unrealistic at certain points in time. To be 33-49 when I was hired, with an unbalanced roster, turn that around, make it to the Western Conference finals. The very next year we were a plus-10 in wins, going from 33-49 to 43-39. And guys got paid on my watch. It went from a lot of unknown scenarios to I think we have a little bit of a core. And then we got hit with the injury bug like crazy last [season]. We might have been Top 5 in games lost to injury.
Here’s more on the Lakers:
- LeBron James is listed as questionable to play against Sacramento tonight due to left foot injury management, ESPN’s Dave McMenamin tweets. James has only missed two games this season.
- Max Christie has suddenly become a key member of the rotation, averaging 28.7 minutes and getting an audition as a starter. He didn’t contribute much offensively on Sunday against Memphis but did a superior job guarding Ja Morant, Khobi Price of the Orange County Register writes. “It’s a lot of confidence,” Christie said. “I’ve been thrown in the fire guarding a lot of really good players. Trae Young, Ja Morant, to name a few. So it’s definitely a big confidence booster for me.”
- Christian Wood has yet to make his season debut but he will take a significant step in his rehab from knee surgery during the team’s road trip, according to Price. He’ll remain in Southern California and do live drills against the team’s coaching associates. “He’s doing more on the court with obviously just individual work,” coach JJ Redick said. “His Alter-G (anti-gravity treadmill) stuff, getting to 95%, 100% on the Alter-G. He’s had progress and it’s looking like it’ll be soon. Barring a setback, he’ll be back.”
Because you coached like someone who never watched basketball when they faced Denver x2
He can’t be serious right?
He’s absolutely serious. Ham is a fool.
This is why he wont get another head coaching gig. Dude cant see why he failed and is like stuck in 90s NBA where win loss record is all that matters for a coach and strategy doesnt matter.
He uses winning that stupid and pointless in-season tournament as a reason he should have kept his job. That tells you what he’s made of right there.
worst rotations in basketball last season
His substitutions and set design were also really bad. LeBron and Davis carried him so hard.
Darvin is exactly right.
Get off your burner Ham
If you remember or can do some research to pinpoint several instances – in the last 25 years, say – where a team altered its roster IN-SEASON to the degree the ‘23 Lakers’ roster was transformed (Hachimura, Russell, Vanderbilt, Beasley?) and still managed to make it to the conference finals that same season, then I won’t think much of Ham as a head coach, ChapmansVacuum. It’s one thing to SHOP for the groceries (Pelinka), but you also need someone to cook it all up and make it look and taste good; and imagine having to do the latter on the fly – literally two-seasons-in-one for those ‘23 Lakers. While most other playoff teams were slowly gearing up for the first round of the playoffs, Pelinka essentially thrust Ham and his coaching staff back to training camp mode in FEBRUARY with the roster reshuffling.
You can now add narcissist to the list of Ham’s faults.
Salute!