Darvin Ham spent two years as head coach of Los Angeles Lakers and hasn’t gotten over how his tenure with the franchise ended.
L.A. dismissed Ham following the 2023-24 campaign, after which he caught on with the Milwaukee Bucks and ended up as an assistant to Doc Rivers. On Tuesday night, December 17, Milwaukee captured the second ever NBA Cup with a convincing victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Lakers won the first Cup in league history last season under Ham.
Marc J. Spears of Andscape spoke with Ham following the victory, during which the two got to the topic of his firing by the Lakers just months before.
To do as well as I did, I swear to God, anywhere else I’m probably looking at an extension with what I did.
I’m not talking about feelings. I’m talking actual facts. They go from not making it to the playoffs to the final four in the NBA, the conference finals. And then you win the in-season tournament, navigate through all the injuries and win both of your play-in games to get to the playoffs.
People always talk about us losing to Denver, but they never talk about how we got to Denver. We beat a kick-ass young squad in Memphis and we beat Golden State.
Doc Rivers Doubled Down on Defense of Darvin Ham’s Dismissal From Lakers
Getty Milwaukee Bucks head coach Doc Rivers.
Ham’s decision to speak so publicly about what he believes was a raw deal isn’t unprecedented in the league, though it is somewhat rare. One reason is the media attention that it draws, but perhaps that is the point, as Ham profiles as a coach interested in another crack at the top job somewhere in the NBA in the relatively near future.
Rivers has also spoken publicly and critically about the Lakers’ decision to fire Ham.
“I’m not going to get into the whole thing that happened there, but he took a team to a Western Finals and then the following year, he won the in-season tournament, which they say we should have a lot of value on, and then they release him,” Rivers said in October, per Bleacher Report. “It literally makes no sense, but it happens. It happens to all of us. It’s part of what we do. But Darvin Ham’s a coach. He should be on the sidelines, and I wanted him next to me.”
Rivers doubled down on those comments in his own interview ahead of the Bucks’ Cup win on Tuesday night.
“I’m not going through the whole Lakers thing,” Rivers said. “I thought he got a tough deal there.”
Lakers’ Stars Had Concerns About Darvin Ham’s Coaching
GettyLos Angeles Lakers star Anthony Davis and former head coach Darvin Ham.
Ham and Rivers have a case.
Ham went 90-74 as the Lakers’ head coach across two regular seasons, made the playoffs in both years and took the team to a Western Conference Finals after the 2022-23 campaign — which turned out to be the second-best finish of the LeBron James/Anthony Davis era in L.A. to this point.
The Lakers won the championship in 2019-20, which was the COVID-19 season, under head coach Frank Vogel.
However, part of the problem for Ham was that he didn’t have the full confidence of some of his top players when it came to the Xs and Os portion of his resumé.
“We have stretches where we just don’t know what we’re doing on both ends of the floor,” Davis said following the team’s Game 2 loss to the Nuggets in the first round of last year’s playoffs, per ESPN.
Ham responded publicly, saying he believed Davis’s comments came from a place of “frustration.” However, top analysts across the league, including Brian Windhorst of ESPN, saw a lot more going on than that.
“Davis blamed Darvin Ham for this loss. That is exactly what he did,” Windhorst said on April 25, the day following the game in question, per Bleacher report. “It really irritates Lakers fans, some of the strategy decisions Darvin’s been under fire [for] from people from L.A. for a lot of this year. It drove them crazy that he ended that game where they blew a 20-point lead in the second half with two timeouts in his pocket.”
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