It is not easy being a head coach in the NBA. One year of success is oftentimes overlooked when it comes to a year of failure, and that was the case with Darvin Ham and the Los Angeles Lakers. Ham was relieved of his duties in Los Angeles at the conclusion of the 2023-24 season, and Doc Rivers decided to add him to his staff, reuniting Ham with the Milwaukee Bucks franchise.
The last few seasons have not been favorable for the Bucks as a franchise. Rivers took over for first-year head coach Adrian Griffin in the middle of the 2023-24 season, and this team has been ousted from the playoffs in the first round each of the last two seasons. There is a sense of urgency in Milwaukee, and with Damian Lillard and Giannis Antetokounmpo on this roster, there is no reason why the Bucks can't find success.
Due to his experiences coaching LeBron James and Anthony Davis, as well as the respect he holds internally in Milwaukee, Rivers decided to add Ham to his staff following his departure from the Lakers. This move seemed puzzling to many, especially Lakers fans, but Rivers continues to uplift Ham and sing praise for his newest assistant while also calling out the Lakers.
“It’s been great. First of all, he’s been here even longer than me. He knows things that I didn’t know. He has relationships with the players. Another guy that can trust,” Rivers said on Ham on Thursday. “Trust is so important for players. And more importantly, he deserves it. 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. 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.”
Although things seemed to go sour for Ham and his locker room in Los Angeles, he certainly found a level of success over his two years as a head coach. Ham was tasked with the impossible job of coaching the Lakers, a job that is always thrown under the microscope, and he constantly had to deal with the outside noise surrounding this being a team truly coached by LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
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Even with the problems the Lakers faced, Ham still finished his tenure with a 90-74 regular-season record, taking the team to the playoffs both of his years. Despite making the playoffs via the play-in tournament in 2023, Ham was still able to help take the Lakers to the Western Conference Finals, where they lost to the Denver Nuggets, the eventual champions. Last season, Ham recorded a 47-35 record, and the Lakers won the first-ever NBA Cup.
Through all of the ups and downs Ham faced as the head coach in Los Angeles, he still found a level of success that Rivers respects. That is the motivating factor behind the long-time head coach wanting to bring the former Lakers coach back to Milwaukee, where he spent four years as an assistant coach prior. Rivers has full confidence in Ham's ability to be one of his lead assistants.
