Second year head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers Darvin Ham has experienced a fair share of challenges in his short tenure with the team. Despite having LeBron James and Anthony Davis on the roster, the Lakers have underperformed and Ham is still trying to iron out those wrinkles.
While L.A. gave Ham his first opportunity as a head coach, he has illustrated some difficulties when it comes to lineups and rotations. This year has been filled with inconsistency and struggle to find continuity, although it seems that things are starting to click despite it being over the halfway mark of the season.
The Lakers recently embarked on their annual Grammy trip, a six-game road trip that featured some tests against the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks, among others. Ham and company were able to finish 4-2, which is significant as L.A. struggled away from Crypto.com Arena.
With the trade deadline approaching on Thursday, it remains to be seen if Ham will be coaching the same or a different team the next time the Lakers take the floor, Regardless, Ham remains hopeful in this roster despite the inconsistencies they have displayed, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“I just think a lot of that stuff is beyond our control in terms of playing the what-if game. What is guys are healthy? What if you had this person on your team instead of that person? I’ve been saying it all year, we’ve been inconsistent, but what we have in our locker room currently, we feel like we can really compete at a high level when we’re right. Being right means we’re defensive focused, we’re organized offensively, and everybody to a man and collectively is competing. Just nothing else, not worrying about mistakes, not worrying about touches, not worrying about rotations. Just worry about doing my part to get a win. And I think we’ve seen that over the last three games and saw it in Golden State in the Saturday double-overtime game. When we play at that level, we have more than enough in our locker room. Obviously you can’t get your feelings involved, it’s just the fact and the nature of this business is to try to get better and win if you can. That’s just it, it’s the business of basketball. But as far as we are now, what we were able to do to finish out this trip, there’s no doubt in my mind we got pieces that will do great things for us and play at a high level for us.”
So far the Lakers have not lived up to their expectations this season and time is running out. However, it is reassuring to see the team show signs of life and pick up wins against two of the top teams in the Eastern Conference.
Ham is trying to make it work and coming off a Western Conference Finals appearance, but he needs to start making things come together quickly if they want to contend in the postseason. The good news is that Ham seems to be finding some consistency in lineups and rotations, which has led to encouraging results.
Darvin Ham: There’s ‘definitely’ chance Jarred Vanderbilt returns to Lakers lineup this season
Despite a successful Grammy trip, the Lakers suffered a massive blow with Jarred Vanderbilt suffering a serious foot injury. While it looked bad, Ham believes there is ‘definitely’ a chance Vanderbilt returns to the lineup this season.
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