“We can’t find any consistency until we get healthy. It’s as simple as that.”
That postgame comment from Lakers’ coach Darvin Ham Wednesday night left plenty of Lakers fans shaking their heads — it was terrible timing and messaging. Los Angeles had just looked flat and disinterested in a home loss to a Miami team without its biggest star, Jimmy Butler, but the Heat still played connected basketball (and just outworked Los Angeles). Miami has had injury issues — its three stars (Butler, Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro) have been together for just eight games all season — yet they are winning, six games over .500 and a top-four seed in the East.
The Lakers are 17-18 on the season and are 3-9 since winning the In-Season Tournament, with Ham desperately searching for a rotation that works but not finding enough shooting, shot creation or even defense anywhere he looks. That is despite LeBron James and Anthony Davis playing more than 30 games at an All-NBA level.
Now come reports of a real disconnect in the Lakers’ locker room between Ham and the Lakers players, something reported by Jovan Buha and Shams Charania of The Athletic in a detailed story.
There’s currently a deepening disconnect between Darvin Ham and the Lakers locker room, six sources with direct knowledge of the situation say, raising questions about the head coach’s standing... Those sources have described that the disjointedness between the coach and team has stemmed from the extreme rotation and starting lineup adjustments recently from Ham, leading to a fluctuating rhythm for several players across the roster...
The Lakers championed their continuity all summer, including bringing back their top-five scorers from the Western Conference finals run (James, Davis, Austin Reaves, D’Angelo Russell and Rui Hachimura, in that order). But more than a third of the way into the season, three of those players – and the team’s third-, fourth- and fifth-highest-paid players in Russell, Hachimura and Reaves, respectively, at that – were coming off the bench. Reaves has been coming off the bench most of the season despite being touted by Ham as a future All-Star over the summer and ranking third on the team in scoring, Russell’s role has shrunk since Las Vegas, and Hachimura’s playing time vacillates on a nightly basis.
“When I say the vibe is off, it’s not like we don’t like each other,” Reaves said. “It’s we’re losing. We should be pissed off. We shouldn’t be happy after games with how we’re playing. But I don’t want to get that twisted on us not liking each other. Everybody in the locker room gets along.”
That’s the real question for the Lakers front office: Are the bad vibes in the Lakers’ locker room a symptom of losing games or something much deeper? Is chemistry just a three-game win streak away?
Saying Ham is on the hot seat seems like the low-hanging fruit answer, not one that gets at the core issues.
The problem with the Lakers is not injuries so much as what they expose — this was a team built without a margin for error. The touted continuity and depth have failed, and the defense that was supposed to anchor them is inconsistent. At the top, this roster requires 39-year-old LeBron James to be a top-10 player in the league every night because of his shot creation. If he has an off night — like he did against Miami when he had 12 points on 6-of-18 shooting, including 0-6 from 3 — the offense can’t consistently generate good looks. The Lakers go as LeBron goes nightly, which was not supposed to be the case.
This Lakers team was built for short bursts of quality play when everyone is healthy — which is how they won the inaugural IST — but can’t sustain that over the grind of the regular season. More concerning, it’s hard to envision this Lakers team having the versatility and grit to grind out enough wins for a month or more to stick around in the playoffs and get back to the Western Conference Finals. It’s not just Denver that is still better than Los Angeles, how would the Lakers handle the athleticism and shooting of the Thunder or Timberwolves in a series? That team down the hall at Crypto.com Arena has made its bold move, found chemistry and stands in stark contrast to how the Lakers have played of late.
All of this will lead to a lot of speculation around the Lakers at the trade deadline. Expect some kind of move. But is another major shake-up — and a player such as the expensive Zach LaVine — really the answer for a team lacking continuity and grit?
The Lakers need to string together a series of wins while home for eight of their next nine games. If not, Ham’s seat might start to get hot (even if that seems like an offseason move at best right now). It’s going to take more than just getting healthy to find that groove.
