LeBron James and the Lakers will have a new coach for the 2022-23 season, but Charles Barkley doesn’t think they made the right choice with Darvin Ham.
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The 2021-22 season was all sorts of bad for the Lakers. They missed the playoffs in a disappointing way, and the future doesn’t look too bright either.
Everything went wrong for the Lakers last year. They made the bold move in the offseason to go after ex-All Star Russell Westbrook, and the experiment didn’t work out.
Whether it was the poor roster construct or head coach Frank Vogel not being able to find the right rotations, the fit just was never right with Westbrook. Los Angeles fired Frank Vogel after a terrible year in which the Lakers went 33-49, finishing 11th in the conference and missing both the playoffs and play-in tournament.
LeBron James and Darvin Ham are almost the same age which angers Charles Barkley
LeBron James turned in one of his finest seasons as a pro last year despite the Lakers’ struggles. He finished averaging 30.3 points per game (second in the league and almost a career high), 8.2 rebounds per game, and 6.2 rebounds per game.
However, his Herculean efforts weren’t enough. Now, the hope is that he’ll bounce back with new coach Darvin Ham. Ham has been an assistant coach for the Lakers from 2011-13, the assistant coach for the Atlanta Hawks from 2013-18, and then most recently, he was the assistant coach for the Milwaukee Bucks.
The Lakers were very impressed by him in interviews and chose to go ahead with him as the leader of the team for the future. LeBron also gave his seal of approval, Tweeting out an enthusiastic supporting message for the coach once he was hired.
However, ESPN analyst and former NBA legend Charles Barkley is a little less enthusiastic and doesn’t see much room for improvement for the Lakers next year. He said:
“Well I’m glad Darvin got an opportunity ’cause he’s paid his dues,” Barkley said. “He’s a nice guy. We’ll have to see what kind of coach he is. But listen, if one of your coaches is close to the same age as your players, your team not gonna be any good anyway. The Lakers, they got a serious dilemma on their hands.”
“Their best player’s gonna be 40. Anthony Davis has never been healthy. Obviously, Russ (Russell Westbrook) is gonna be there one more year, so what’s really bad about the situation — next year is gonna be the same as this year. And then LeBron [James] just gonna be a year older, and then they’ll have Russ off the books.”
For reference, Ham is 48 years old while LeBron is 37. However, Barkley’s comments about Ham’s age are a little interesting because Frank Vogel is also 48 years old. Or, this could just be Barkley’s way of saying he never agreed with Vogel as the head coach of the Lakers to begin with either.
