There are a lot of questions surrounding the Los Angeles Lakers now that their season has ended thanks to the Denver Nuggets and another Jamal Murray buzzer-beater. One person who has been under a lot of pressure all season long is head coach Darvin Ham.
The Lakers came into this season with championship expectations but wound up in the Play-In Tournament as the seventh seed leading to their matchup with the Nuggets. There were concerns throughout the season about Ham’s rotations and lineups, but once he did settle on a lineup, the team did play much better.
But reportedly, some within the organization felt it was too late at that point and that the Lakers could have been a higher seed has Ham figured this out sooner. According to ESPN’s Dave McMenamin, some within the organization feel that Ham failed to make the best out of what he had with the Lakers:
Yet rather than the team’s resiliency being applauded as the prevailing sentiment surrounding the late-season success, multiple team sources told ESPN that the Lakers should have — or even would have — finished better than No. 7 in the West and avoided the play-in tournament had Ham settled on that starting lineup much sooner.
“The job of a coach is to make the best out of what you have,” one team source told ESPN. “And he wasn’t doing that.”
There is no doubt that the constant shuffling of lineups and rotations was frustrating to many. The Lakers did deal with injuries to many role players with the likes of Jarred Vanderbilt, Gabe Vincent, Cam Reddish and Christian Wood all missing big chunks of time.
However, the Lakers’ top four players of LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Austin Reaves and D’Angelo Russell all played at least 71 games this season and when that is the case, it is reasonable to expect better. The fact that both Russell and Reaves spent time coming off the bench was something that didn’t sit well with many.
The Lakers were excellent down the stretch of the year and had they played that way from the beginning, things could have been much different. Instead they must now sit and wonder what could have been, with Ham’s future as the Lakers coach in question.
Darvin Ham ‘highly unlikely’ to return as Lakers coach next season
And if the recent reports are any indication, the Lakers are almost certain to have a new man at the head of the bench next year.
The latest reports called it ‘highly unlikely’ that Darvin Ham will return as head coach of the Lakers next season. The franchise will assess everything that went wrong this year and eventually come to a decision.
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