With the Lakers eliminated by the Nuggets for the second time, the future of the Lakers is also full of confusion, and the Lakers currently have as many as three contracts expiring, they are Wood, Prince, Dinwiddie and Reddish, and the two have player options, James and Russell.
However, according to sources, it may not be the player who will leave first, but coach Ham.
According to NBA Register Shams, the Lakers have doubts and dissatisfaction with Ham's coaching ability, and he will hardly return to the Lakers head coach position, which the Lakers will announce in the coming days.
In addition, Woshen continued to report, saying that Ham's current future with the Lakers is very unstable and he may leave at any time.
In 2022, the Lakers agreed to a four-year, $20 million contract with rookie coach Darvin Ham, which expires in the summer of 2026, and if the Lakers fire him, they will still need to pay the remaining $10 million.
Hamm's coaching ability in the past two years is obvious to all, although the pre-game arrangement has been effective, but the on-court play is particularly deadly, whether it is obsessed with three guards or tactical initiation, it has been criticized, and the most famous is the G4 series with the Nuggets.
When James was defending Pope, the ball was touched out of bounds, and the referee awarded the Nuggets the ball, and then James strongly asked Ham to challenge, but Ham and the entire Lakers coaching staff on the sidelines were indifferent, and the helpless James was so anxious that he jumped to his feet in the court.
Through replay, the ball was touched out of bounds by Pope, and if challenged, the ball was possessed by the Lakers.
While everyone was complaining about why Ham didn't use the challenge to get the ball, G5, he did the opposite, with 3 minutes left in the game, he had already used up all the timeouts, and when Murray threw the quasi-killer shot, the Lakers had 3 seconds left to attack, but there was no timeout at this time.
Ham's two years with the Lakers, with a regular season record of 90-74 and a winning rate of 54.9%, and a playoff record of 9-12 and a winning rate of 42.9%.
Seeing that he was going to take the blame, Ham stopped pretending and said bluntly: "We don't have a healthy roster, but I'm always criticized for not building a consistent rotation lineup, which frustrates me. ”
It can be seen that Hamm also has a premonition that he is going to be fired.
At present, the Lakers' next coach has a number of reinforcements, Handy, Budenholzer, Stotts and others are all possible, of which Handy is the number one favorite.
In addition to the head coach, another important figure for the Lakers is to try to keep James, and according to Shams, the Lakers are willing to offer James a three-year, $164 million max contract.
However, James is not in a hurry to respond, he said on social media that he will not make any decisions at the moment, he just wants to be with his family, and he will only determine his direction after he has seriously considered it with his family and agent.