Darvin Ham’s seat was hot from the moment he sat on a podium in Los Angeles to become the Lakers’ next head coach.
Or the next scapegoat, depending on how you look at it.
It’s never as simple as being eliminated in the first round a year after making an improbable run to the conference finals, it’s never as simple as the expectations that come with coaching two generational players, each with their own particular set of needs. which severely complicates things.
It’s never easy with the Lakers, it’s never easy with LeBron James, who exerted his own influence moments after the Lakers were eliminated Monday night by the defending champion Denver Nuggets.
But maybe it’s as simple as the Lakers firing Ham after two seasons because they wanted to, because it occurred to them reasonably early that they gathered enough evidence to say that Ham wouldn’t be the guy to move on.
A coach is fired because he loses a dressing room, the players lose faith in him and the board cannot instill confidence in the players, but no one was going to be a defender of Ham anyway.
Considering how many teams in today’s league fancied themselves title contenders only to be sent home before May, let alone June, it’s a predictable outcome. Coaches, while generously compensated, are easily disposable.
One could argue, reasonably or not, that 20 of the NBA’s 30 coaches could be fired this season, if they want to be fired at all. The Lakers rarely see reason to keep a coach, going back to Pat Riley and Phil Jackson, guys on the short list of all-time greats.
The coach is not the star. The players are, and in some ways, it’s probably Lakers governor Jeanie Buss. And for the star franchise of star franchises, this was bound to happen.
Assuming James returns for his seventh season in Los Angeles, this will be his fourth coach as a Laker and 10th in 21 seasons. That’s an average of two years and then dismissal.
So maybe Ham was on time with this.
Coaching James, at this late stage in his career, does not breed patience, even for the best tacticians.
But who looks at this squad and sees a championship team? Or a championship contender? Not in this NBA, not this year. And to do that, every member of the Lakers’ think tank should take a hard look in the mirror.
At first glance, the Lakers were an inconsistent group. They won the Season Tournament in impressive fashion, but the 2-9 streak that immediately followed the win in Las Vegas, with inconsistent use of a roster that wasn’t as well-rounded as advertised, played a role in their downfall. If that’s the case, if benching Austin Reaves for a while or playing Taurean Prince for too long is the reason Rob Pelinka and company sent him his exit papers, it meant that only perfection would be enough for him. Ham.
Maybe he didn’t call timeouts at the right time, and maybe he should have ignored Davis’ comments about players not knowing what they’re doing during stretches of games instead of launching a decent defense of his own coaching staff and planning. preparation, but he didn’t do it.
“Sometimes plays don’t go the way we think they should and frustration sets in a little bit,” Ham said before Game 3 in Los Angeles. “But I don’t think this was unorganized. We have talented trainers on staff, we pride ourselves on being highly efficient and organized. I agree to disagree with that.”
But if he didn’t project confidence, if he gave Davis all the validation, we would be saying that he is not qualified to coach this team under these circumstances. No defense or explanation would have been enough because by then, everyone in Lakerland knew what was coming and Ham would be the one to blame.
And that gets to the point: If Ham had to be perfect to keep his job, as the first-time head coach of this franchise, he probably shouldn’t have been hired in the first place.
There’s a margin of error when guys sit in that seat for the first time, no matter how well-groomed they are at the time. If an organization can’t allow a coach to grow with his players and evolve on his own, then he shouldn’t be in that situation, much less coach an aging LeBron James, who already knows more basketball than most of the men they coach. . him.
Steve Kerr won 67 games and a championship during his first season as Golden State’s coach, and even he would say he’s a much better coach now than he was 10 years ago. Tyronn Lue and Erik Spoelstra are pound for pound the best coaches in the sport. Remember how someone tried to fire Spoelstra during the first season of the Heat’s Big Three era? Fortunately, Spoelstra was given room to grow, evolve, and figure things out, all while he was in a pressure-filled environment.
But there would be no such grace for Ham, who by his own admission would say he didn’t do everything right.
Ham reunited with his former teammates in Detroit several weeks ago, for the 20th anniversary of the Pistons’ 2004 championship. He seemed relaxed and talked to the guys about what it’s like to coach a franchise with all these enormous expectations. What was clear was that, although he knew how difficult the task was, he felt lucky to be in the place and seemed to understand that this might be a likely outcome.
On Monday, after the Game 5 loss, he was asked to recap his time as Lakers coach. “It’s a great question,” Ham said before pausing. “It’s difficult, my mind is all over the place. It’s been an incredible two years, I tell you, sitting in this seat. In the end we want to win. I know how it feels. “You control what you can control.”
However, Ham’s own margin of error was reduced by factors beyond his control. Like the Russell Westbrook fiasco he had to handle, which was only resolved when the Lakers pulled him and replaced him with D’Angelo Russell, when they could have traded for veteran Mike Conley.
It’s easy to blame Ham instead of looking at last year’s draft, when the Lakers took Jalen Hood-Schifino, who wasn’t ready to play. However, the next two picks, Jaime Jaquez Jr. (Miami) and Brandin Podziemski (Golden State), proved to be valuable contributors for their respective teams.
Yes, Ham played Cam Reddish more than he should have, but he didn’t sign him or Christian Wood, another player the Lakers couldn’t unlock. But teams fail on draft picks or free agent signings all the time, it’s built into what it takes to run a franchise.
Grace, growth and responsibility.
Those elements weren’t given to Ham, and perhaps the Lakers saw some things in him that would indicate that even with time and a better roster he wouldn’t be able to maximize.
That again points to hiring him first instead of someone with more experience, someone who has been through the hard lessons that happen the first time.
But perhaps the Lakers’ hubris overestimated their run to the Western Finals last spring, perhaps they actually patted themselves on the back for the competitive four-game sweep of the Nuggets.
Or in all likelihood, the Lakers underestimated how much the league would grow around them, that continuity doesn’t automatically carry over from one year to the next. Some people saw Minnesota and Oklahoma City coming, or Dallas figuring things out with more time for Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving and a roster of workhorses behind them.
There was a four-game difference between the Lakers and the fourth-seeded Clippers, indicating the margins were tight everywhere. As good as James is, he’s old and can’t accelerate all the time. As great and transcendent as Davis’s talent is, his shoulder clash with Michael Porter Jr. may turn him from Godzilla into less than a mere mortal in an elimination game.
Then the Lakers can throw Ham overboard and feel justified in doing so.
But if that’s the only change they’ll make, believing that edge adjustments will elevate them to championship status, they’re sadly mistaken.