The Ham-mering of Darvin

In professional sports, almost always, it’s the coach who gets the blame when the team underperforms.  Most especially when there’s a muscular 6-8, 260-pound flopping crybaby who doesn’t take one iota of accountability.

In 12 years, the LA Lakers had seven coaching changes.  How can a team ever be freaking consistent when this happens every two years?

Ever heard of the term “dead man walking”?   Darvin Ham was reportedly not on the same page with his superstar diva that after the All-Star break, he was a “fired coach walking”.  Things escalated during the playoffs when players were seen ignoring Ham drawing plays in a timeout, not to mention that LeBron tantrum when Ham refused to challenge an out-of-bounds call in Game 4.

Well, the play resumed while he was still ranting and pouting, not paying attention, allowing Jamal Murray to score an easy basket.  With the game on the line, are going crackers in the closing minutes of the fourth quarter the actions of a supposed GOAT?

Yes, coach Ham made questionable playoff game-time decisions and he failed to adjust to situations which allowed Denver to prevail.

And just like that, with a phone call from GM Rob Pelinka, Darvin got hammered.  Making things interesting for the Lakers, everyone on the coaching staff was also fired.  I will assume that Pelinka already has a replacement in mind with the concurrence of LeBron.  Ham, meanwhile, will receive the remainder of his 4-yer, $20 million contract through the 2025-2026 season.

Why won’t the Lakers fire Pelinka also?  For the past four years, he was responsible for all the drama LAL is having.  A former player agent who gets 4% from players’ contracts and bonuses, Pelinka was hired as GM in 2017 and in 2020 promoted to VP of basketball operations when Magic Johnson resigned, yes, because of him.

After the 2020 title, Pelinka got rid of Rajon Rondo, Danny Green and a first round pick for Dennis Schroeder.  It didn’t pan out, so he traded away Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Kyle Kuzma and another first round pick for Russell Westbrook.  We all know what happened.  During his tenure, Pelinka fired three coaches – Luke Walton, Frank Vogel and Ham.  In any other contending teams, his decisions the wear out his welcome.

LeBron entered the Laker scene in 2018 and like what he’d done in Cleveland, gets what he wants, (Carmelo Anthony in 2020 and Westbrook the following year.)  He was the star player in his four years with Miami but does not have the power to outpower coach Erik Spoelstra and team president Pat Riley.

Robert Jaworski proved it in the PBA that a player-coach can be successful until he was in his 50s.  Why not make LeBron be LAL’s coach and player since obviously he can’t be fired.  Then we’ll be seeing Bronny playing for his daddy.

In LeBron’s six years with the team, three coaches had their butts kicked, partly because he can’t get along with them.