Losing to the Timberwolves on the road, the Lakers suffered a disappointing loss. It is obvious that the attitude of the Lakers is to win the victory. James and thick eyebrows are almost full, and James insists on playing with the flu. But helplessly, except for the two core shots of 22 of 38 and 59 points, all the rest of the Lakers' players combined were only 15 of 50 efficient, and the score was only 47 points. Including Russell, Reaves, Hachimura, and other players with tens of millions of annual salaries, without exception, they were collectively locked up, which is also the reason for the Lakers' defeat. 10.5 million, goodbye Lakers, the death hole of the Purple and Gold Army's championship, James will carry the weight for you.
Why do the Lakers show their determination to win and show the attitude of a midseason tournament? On the one hand, they have a 17-15 record, and they have back-to-back games against the Pelicans, and if they lose, the Lakers know what their situation will be like, and it is likely that their winning percentage will return to 50% , and even fell out of the top 10 in the West, under the premise of reaching the Western Conference Finals before and completing the roster upgrade in the offseason, no one could have imagined that the Lakers could play so hard when they were more than halfway through the season and their thick eyebrows were relatively healthy. At the end of the day, in my opinion, the Lakers' problem lies with the head coach. Regardless, Ham isn't a playoff-level coach to trust.
It is true that the Lakers' players have their own problems. For example, several core players, James is old and unable to integrate offense and defense, Reaves lacks talent on the defensive end, Hachimura is not stable enough, and his feet move slowly on the defensive end. However, having said that, these problems exist in any NBA team, no one's lineup is completely free of loopholes, at least the Lakers' overall lineup is strong, the front line is full of thickness, and there are enough cards to play, in the eyes of most people, if it is reasonably arranged, the Lakers' lineup should not only play such a mediocre record, they should be in the top 4 ranks in the West.
Against the Timberwolves, thick eyebrows and James saved Ham several times, but in the end, his tactical arrangement was really unbearable. When everyone thought that the Lakers would arrange a position and then take a few screens to fight for space for a three-point shot, what was Ham's arrangement, and he was like a normal sideline ball, letting James go to the position and hand the ball to him. The result is obvious, even if James got the ball and the bag came as scheduled, the Lakers didn't even get a chance to shoot in the end, to put it mildly, the Lakers didn't have a strategy at all in the end, and Ham didn't know how to deal with it. His arrangement is very amateurish, and I even think that if Ham had arranged it this way, then the Lakers would have been able to arrange such a sideline ball without a coach at all.
It looks like the Lakers did win the mid-season tournament under Ham's leadership. But in fact, fans who follow the Lakers should be able to see clearly that when the Lakers want to win and James wants to win, basically the Lakers rely on James to win the victory. James has more than once arranged tactics for the Lakers at critical moments, or seen through the opponent's tactics on the court, arranged teammates to stand, and disrupted the opponent's offense. The most outrageous thing is that against the Suns, seeing that Reaves was about to be completed with a steal, Ham was indifferent on the sidelines, and the life-saving timeout was shouted by James. If Ham can't even do this kind of thing, he really doesn't have any meaning in the current Lakers.
It must be admitted that this past season, the Lakers needed Ham, he needed Ham's ability to mediate the locker room, and he needed him to reassure Willis and make the latter accept the position of the bench. But now it's different, the good atmosphere of the Lakers is back, and what they need is a coach who really has the right stuff, but Ham's poor coaching performance has caused the Lakers to be depressed and depressed. It's hard to imagine that the Lakers haven't decided on their starting lineup until now, their rotation is chaotic, the role of players is uncertain, and the timing is sparsely chopped. Can you imagine Ham being able to field James as point guard and start a lineup with two space holes (Reddish and Vanderbilt) in the absence of backup guard Vincent?
I don't even want to use the word almost, because there's really no second team in the league that starts without a defender. After the change of lineup, the Lakers had no space to start, no defense off the bench (Reaves with Russell), and they completely exposed their weaknesses to the opponent, and in my opinion, it is impossible for any coach with a little basketball knowledge to line up the lineup that Ham has given. Obviously, Ham has become a burden to the Lakers, and his existence has brought more negative effects to the Lakers, James has publicly expressed his dissatisfaction, saying that Hachimura's time has been cut too hard, and there are other people's unstable roles, in this case, role players cannot continue to play efficient performances, Ham's departure is the key to the Lakers' breakthrough, more important than trading.