Seems like there has been a lot of positive feedback on the hiring of Darvin Ham, LeBron really wanted Doc Rivers but based on his latest post on social media it received his stamp of approval. A lot of marks around Westbrook’s fit with LeBron and AD, I personally thought Russ,LeBron,Melo,Howard, and AD were going to destroy the league and give us a glimpse of what a real super-team looks like but that never came to fruition as Davis missed half the season which pretty much ruined the experiment. They say Darvin Ham is someone you do not want to try and right away I think of LeBron and Russ and how they will manage being coached, it does help that Ham actually played in the NBA as Westbrook likely never respected Vogel due to him never playing at the NBA level. I never thought tasking a defensive minded coach like Vogel with Russ and Melo was a good idea, throw in LeBron and Vogel was asking for the axe from the get go.
Watching coaches like Ime Udoka,Willie Green, and Nick Nurse succeed early on in their head coaching endeavors leaves room for optimism with Ham being that he would be tasked with coaching three superstars in Russ,LeBron,and AD who’ve all played deep in the playoffs already. I think he could make it work because he has LeBron James by his side, and his only real job will be to take a page out of Ty Lue’s book and build a genuine bond with LeBron. LeBron never bonded with David Blatt and not even Erik Spoelstra to an extent, I think he backed Frank Vogel from day 1 but it felt like a superficial relationship between the two. Darvin Ham if he is who they say he is will put Westbrook,LeBron,and AD where they belong and we won’t be left wondering what is the Lakers’s identity like we did this season.
The Lakers could win the title next season so long they build the team complimentary to what LeBron,AD,and Russ bring to the basketball court. Every game was a dog fight for the Lakers this past season, but in the 20 something games the Big 3 suited up all 3 were scoring 15+ points by the time the 4th quarter came around and that was done with Vogel at the helm who is no Albert Einstein at coaching up a potent offense. The Lakers are already patching up their mistakes made these past 2 failing seasons by hiring Darvin Ham, now they must make sure they build a team that actually makes sense instead of putting a big blob of big names together and expecting it to lead to success. We haven’t heard yet on the Lakers’s plans with Westbrook and not to dig in to the man’s personal life but he does have a family to maintain and opting out of $47 million is just not a very wise deision.
To conclude I was shocked Darvin Ham was hired as the head coach, I actually wanted Scott Brooks since he seemed to have the most success with Russ in Oklahoma City and also coached Russ that 1 season with the Wizards but maybe Darvin can work some magic in what could be LeBron’s last 2 seasons with the Lakers before he bolts elsewhere to play with his son. Jeanie Buss is giving herself 2 more seasons with LeBron,she wants to make LeBron happy and wants him to become the all-time leading scorer in a Laker uniform next season. LeBron being embraced by Laker fans the way Magic and Kobe did were is unlikely but I do believe he’ll deliver them one more title before he retires, maybe the Lakers just needed a new voice in the locker-room and they tuned out Vogel the same way the Celtics tuned out Stevens. A new voice in the Boston locker-room has the Celtics one game within the NBA Finals under Ime Udoka who adopts a similar coaching philosophy to Darvin Ham, seems like the Lakers are following the wave bringing over Darvin,till next time.
D-NBA 