If there’s one thing that became clear during Darvin Ham’s first season as head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers it’s that he is not afraid to hold players accountable, challenging them to be at their best on a nightly basis.
That is not expected to change for Ham in his second season at the helm, and he made that clear when the Lakers introduced their 2023 draft class on Tuesday afternoon.
When asked what it will take for Jalen Hood-Schifino and Maxwell Lewis to see the floor during their rookie seasons, Ham preached what he has been saying sine the beginning and emphasized the need for them to compete on the defensive end of the floor.
“As I said from day one, a little over a year ago here last year, it’s the three things that we look for and that’s competitiveness, togetherness and accountability and I think these are two great young men, highly competitive who are known to work well with their teammates,” Ham said. “I’m sure there will be a lot of buy-in from them immediately, and then holding yourself accountable. Doing everything you can to put yourself in the best possible position to be successful and with these young guys, it’s learning how to be pros, first and foremost. Learning how you got to change your nutrition and sleeping habits, constantly working on your body and working on your game. And also not just randomly working on different things, but things that are gonna translate to the group and things that are gonna allow the group to be successful.
“So we have all the faith in the world in these two that they’re gonna fall right into place with what we got going on and as a young player, the harder you play, the harder you compete, particularly on the defensive end, usually those guys are the ones that get the minutes early. The offense will catch up to what they’re doing, but first they have to establish a competitive tone and obviously buy-in and know what we’re doing defensively and that’s gonna translate into everything else.”
Listening to the words of their new head coach, both Hood-Schifino and Lewis understand that it all starts on the defensive end with the Lakers.
“Like Coach said, I think for young guys just coming in and being competitive, obviously learned and being a sponge, watching a lot of film and asking questions,” Hood-Schifino said. “I think the more you play and be around your teammates, that’s the better you get at doing it so I think just learning on the fly, that’s the main thing.”
“To piggyback off what he said, just doing the little things and just taking defense seriously,” Lewis said. “You got to play defense, I’m pretty sure his motto is if you want to be on the floor, you got to play defense first. So just making sure you do that before anything else.”
Both Hood-Schifino and Lewis were solid defenders in college, although the NBA is one a whole different level so they will need to focus on that end to get playing time, something that has been made clear to them from the very beginning.
Lewis says being draft by Lakers was ‘surreal’
Growing up in Las Vegas and attending Pepperdine, Lewis and his family have been following the Lakers for a long time. Because of that, he called it ‘surreal’ to be drafted by L.A. and play for the same team that his hero Kobe Bryant did.
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