It was a move everyone saw coming when the Lakers fired Darvin Ham last week, but not everyone agrees it was the right decision.
One of those people is ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, who believes Ham wasn’t deserving of the treatment he received.
“He got screwed,” Smith said on First Take. “It was the wrong decision. In two seasons, he went to the Western Conference Finals, he went to the playoffs twice, they were better this year than they were last year, they just ran into the reigning NBA champions and last year they ran into the best team in basketball and ended up being the champions. That’s the only team that’s knocked off the Lakers, is that the course for being fired? I don’t know what to say about that.
“Listen, no coach is perfect, I’m sure folks can point to things he could’ve done differently schematically, with rotations, but look at the roster itself, it was problematic, you had shooters who couldn’t defend, defenders who couldn’t shoot, you’re Darvin Ham and you have to throw in certain guys for defensive purposes and then exchange them for guys with offensive prowess because that’s what you needed. Very few could do both outside of LeBron James and Anthony Davis, so these are the kind of things he had to deal with.”
Anyone coaching one of the NBA’s GOATs in LeBron is going to have it tough, but a 90-74 record across two seasons wasn’t terrible.
It seems the way Ham went about certain things, including limiting LeBron’s minutes early on in the season, rubbed a lot of people at the organization the wrong way.
But at the end of the day, the Lakers’ roster didn’t change too much following their 2022-23 campaign.
So, trying to chase a championship with the team’s current pieces was a tall order for any coach.