Los Angeles Lakers head coach Darvin Ham has been at the center of the drama surrounding the team this season. There have been calls for him to be fired, and things haven’t looked too pretty for the second-year head coach.
With all of the inconsistency that the Lakers have seen on the floor this season, many believe that they will be active at the trade deadline once again. However, it seems that Ham isn’t one of those people.
Ham recently said that he doesn’t believe that the Lakers have to make any big trades to reach their goals. This was prior to them dropping a very winnable game to the Brooklyn Nets, but the fact remains the same.
“Again, everyone keeps talking about, it’s that time of the year, I guess, but with the trade talks, and again, everyone understands in this business that, if there’s opportunities to get better, you’re going to do that,” Ham said. “But the reality of it is, we have what we had down the stretch last year, as well as more firepower and guys who are a year closer and experienced in playing with one another. So, yeah, we can stop looking around and just look at ourselves, look within ourselves. It’s a ton of excellent basketball that we can play and a ton of games that we can win with this group as it is constructed.”
Per Darvin Ham via The Athletic
Ham is one of those coaches who is going to believe in his players no matter what. It’s both a gift and a curse, but in this sense it’s a curse. This Lakers team desperately needs more firepower, simply due to their inconsistency.
Injuries were a blame at the start of the season, but with the calendar now flipped to 2024, this team may just not be good. Both Anthony Davis and LeBron James have been readily available for the most part this year, yet the Lakers are still losing games.
At this rate, Los Angeles may end up missing the postseason. With the team constructed, that would be a massive letdown and surely would see Ham lose his job.
Something needs to be done for this team to get themselves back into a real place of contention. There is still time left to turn the year around, but it needs to happen sooner rather than later.
