The Los Angeles Lakers dropped their first-round series to the Denver Nuggets in five games and now go into an offseason where major changes are sure to take place.
The biggest move could be on the sidelines as the rumor mill is bursting with reports that the Lakers will fire head coach Darvin Ham by the end of the week. Despite a Western Conference Finals run last year, Ham failed to build on the team’s success during the 2023-24 season and now finds himself on the hot seat.
Head coaches will also be the first to get blamed for a team’s failures, which is why Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green came to his defense on his podcast The Draymond Green Show:
“What’s going to happen with Darvin Ham? I think it’ll be wrong to fire him,” Green said. He’ll catch a lot of flak for the season that they had, but their roster didn’t get better than last year and they were a Play-In team. Yeah, they made it to the conference finals with LeBron James and Anthony Davis playing the way that they were playing but they didn’t get better. They lost Dennis Schroder. I don’t think they replaced him. Well, Gabe Vincent didn’t bring anything to the season. Obviously he was hurt and so I don’t think the roster got better but yet you expect better results. But everybody will blame Darvin Ham, like, ‘Oh, it’s his fault.’ Is it really? I don’t think they got much better and so I’m not surprised by the year they had.”
Green and Ham and both from Saginaw, Michigan and go way back, so it’s understandable that the Warriors star would come to his defense here. There were some things were out of Ham’s control such as the injuries, so it should definitely be taken into account if the brass does decide to let him go. However, Ham didn’t help himself with his poor in-game management and his inability to settle on lineups and rotations throughout the regular season.
At this point, it might be best for both sides to part ways because Ham’s job security became a huge distraction during the season and playoffs. Although a formal decision has yet to be made, all the signs point to Ham being excused from his duties.
Michael Malone believes Darvin Ham deserves to remain as Lakers head coach
Head coaches around the league tend to stick up for each other because they know how difficult it is to run a team. Nuggets head coach Michael Malone also defended Ham and said he thinks that he should remain as the Lakers head coach.
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