Milwaukee Bucks assistant coach Darvin Ham understands full well how much pressure comes with coaching the Los Angeles Lakers.
Ham was hired as the Lakers’ head coach following Frank Vogel’s dismissal and did well in his first season, leading them to the Western Conference Finals.
However, things spiraled quickly during the 2023-24 season where Ham seemingly lost the locker room and Los Angeles was subsequently bounced out of the first round of the 2024 NBA Playoffs. Ham was relieved of his duties but wound up back in Milwaukee under Bucks head coach Doc Rivers.
Ham previously spoke about his dismissal and kept things positive. But after Milwaukee won the Emirates NBA Cup, he had a different tone, believing he helped Los Angeles and would have gotten an extension for his work in other organizations, via Marc J. Spears of Andscape:
“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. We beat a kick-ass young squad in Memphis and we beat Golden State.”
Ham also acknowledged he took offense to what was said about his Lakers head coaching tenure and believes he did as well as he could navigating the injury issues on the roster:
“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.
“It’s being reported like I’m just throwing some lineups up against the wall to see what sticks. No man, we were really navigating a lot from guys being hurt to having the oldest player in the league [James] to navigating A.D.’s injury history. It was a lot.
“Some of the s— that was coming out? Wow, bro I don’t know X’s and O’s? I was winging it. Dude, that was the most disappointing stuff, how mean and so much stuff people are saying online. The best thing I could do was block out the outside noise,” Ham said.
At the end of the day though, Ham said he has no negative feelings toward the franchise even though hasn’t spoken much with his former players:
“I haven’t talked to anybody,” Ham said. “When we played them in the preseason, I said hello to a couple of guys. Jaxson [Hayes], Cam [Reddish], DLo [D’Angelo Russell], Gabe [Vincent]. But not really, man. LeBron ran past the bench and we had a little bit of small talk.
“There is no ill will for me. Their situation is what it is.”
It was a toxic end between Ham and the Lakers, though both sides have now moved on and appear to be in better places.
Scotty Pippen takes shot at Darvin Ham for not believing in him
Like Darvin Ham, Scotty Pippen Jr. is thriving in his new home with the Memphis Grizzlies, but he took a shot at his former head coach for not believing in him while they were in Los Angeles.
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