The Los Angeles Lakers came into this season with championship expectations but fell short of those expectations in the end. With the season now over, many are looking at what went wrong for this team with injuries and head coach Darvin Ham being the main points.
While the Lakers top players were all healthy for the most part, a number of role players including Gabe Vincent, Jarred Vanderbilt and Cam Reddish all dealt with injuries for large chunks of the season. At the same time, other players would miss a game or two here and there with the end result being a lack of continuity overall.
In the eyes of Ham, it is that health, and the ability to keep your players on the court, that would take this Lakers team up another level.
“Stay healthy. Stay healthy,” Ham said when asked what could get the Lakers to where they want to be. “You take a lot of flak for your rotations and all of that, but rotations are secondary. The primary is health. And when you’re losing and you start the season off without key pieces and you lose some key pieces early, they come back and you lose some more key pieces and a couple guys have been out two, three, four times throughout the course of the year. It’s hard to build that continuity.
“You have all these talented players all along your roster, but to have a set nine, 10 guys…lose one that’s one thing, but to have two, three, four guys missing at different points and times it’s tough. And all the while trying to manage a guy that’s in his 21st season, another guy in AD that’s in his 12th. All the previous injury history he’s been through. Health. Health is the greatest of wealth and that’s pretty much it. You got healthy players, you can figure the rest out.”
It can’t be argued that health is the most important thing in the NBA and this year is proving that with a number of teams having stars or other key players either playing injured and thus not at their best, or out completely.
Ham has used this to defend himself from the criticism he has seen about his lineups and rotations and to an extent he has good reason to do so. Whether or not he will get another chance to take this team to that level with better health next year, however, is unknown.
Lakers expected to move on from Darvin Ham as head coach
While nothing is for certain, it does seem likely that Darvin Ham’s time with the Lakers is coming to an end.
It was recently reported that the plan is for the Lakers to move on from Ham as their head coach, perhaps as soon as this week and the team’s search for their next head coach will begin after that.
More must-reads: