A lot has been made of Los Angeles Lakers head coach Darvin Ham being in only his second season with the team, but there are plenty of valid concerns with the way this year has unfolded.
Despite making it to the Western Conference Finals last year, he has shown the growing pains of an inexperienced head coach, which is only magnified when coaching a team led by LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
With James only having a few years left, general manager Rob Pelinka is trying to cash in on another title before this duo splits up and they are forced to rebuild. Things do not look great as the team is on the ropes against the defending champion Denver Nuggets with the inconsistent play and rotations during the early part of the season proving to haunt them.
After avoiding a sweep in Game 4, Ham cannot feel at ease as a first-round exit could paint a negative picture. Should the Lakers lose Game 5 in Denver, NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN believes that Ham’s job could be in jeopardy:
“If you are a head coach of the Lakers and you get swept in the first round of the playoffs or you lose in five, you’ve got job security issues. And Darvin Ham will have that. I think that despite the fact he went to the Western Conference Finals last year, he won more games this year, 47 in the regular season when they were without Jarred Vanderbilt and Gabe Vincent for most of it. But here’s what the Lakers will have to look at, what is the marketplace? Who is available to them out there? I think Mike Budenholzer is the most accomplished coach that’s available. The Lakers have not shown necessarily a willingness to pay for a head coach of what Budenholzer is probably going to command on the market. And then you start looking around out there and say also, they’ve got three draft picks that they can move now at the draft. They had one that they can use at the deadline, there will be more players available. He has the potential to have a better team, maybe a guard who allows them to be more of an on point defender, a scorer. Is it fair for Darvin Ham to lose his job? But if they get swept or lose in five, it is part of the conversation the Lakers are gonna have.”
The leashes for head coaches have become shorter and shorter as time passes in the NBA, which could be the case here. It is championship or bust every season for the Lakers, so that is especially the case with them.
Ham has displayed some qualities that limited him and the team’s success from achieving that ultimate goal, and it could end up costing him his job depending on how things go to find out the season.
Darvin Ham details message to Lakers after extending series against Nuggets to Game 5
Thankfully, the Lakers were finally able to defeat the Nuggets in Game 4 after losing 11 straight to them, avoiding being swept for the second straight season. Ham shared his message to the team following that Game 4 win as they get ready for a must-win game in Game 5, where he seems to be coaching for his job.
