Since the end of the Phil Jackson era in 2011, no coach has lasted more than three seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers. Just keep that in mind. This has been a revolving-door situation for more than a decade.
Now, you might think Darvin Ham built up more equity than a Luke Walton or Mike Brown or Mike D’Antoni or Byron Scott after rallying the Lakers into the Western Conference Finals last season, but Frank Vogel — who, you’ll recall, is the coach Ham replaced — won a championship for crying out loud, and he still got canned after Year 3.
Ham is in Year 2, and it’s not going very well. After falling to the Memphis Grizzlies, 127-113, on Friday, the Lakers have now lost four straight and 10 of their last 13 since winning the In-Season Tournament’s NBA Cup on Dec. 9. If the season were to end today, they wouldn’t even make the play-in.
“It is what it is. It’s the NBA, man. It’s a marathon,” Ham said following L.A.’s loss. “You have to look at the totality of the picture. I’m tired of people living and dying with every single game we play. It’s ludicrous, actually. … We hit a tough stretch. It’s the same team that, you know, we played some high-level games a little while ago, and we just got to get back to that. We got to keep the fight though. We cannot lose our fight.”
This is a man who is feeling the heat. You can hear the irritation in his voice.
It’s understandable that Ham is feeling the squeeze. On Thursday, The Athletic reported a “deepening disconnect between Ham and the Lakers locker room,” citing “six sources close to the team.”
On a recent episode of No Cap Room podcast, Yahoo Sports’ Jake Fischer called the chatter around Ham’s job status “the tip of the iceberg of this guy being legitimately on the hot seat right now.”
Ham tried to downplay the reports that he’s in danger of losing his job prior to Friday’s game, saying the following: “I’m solid. My governor, Jeanie Buss, the boss lady; our president, Robert Pelinka — we’re all aligned. As long as they’re not saying it, I guess I’m good. Which…
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