Darvin Ham’s stint as head coach with the Lakers ended abruptly after he was fired in May 2024, following an early playoff exit. Gilbert Arenas believes the failure was almost predestined as Ham wasn’t the right fit to coach LeBron James.
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LeBron is superior to Ham in terms of game IQ and basketball knowledge, explained Arenas, while narrating how the King is particular about the way he wants to play the game. This made the job even more difficult for Ham, who had to cater to LBJ’s ego in order to get everyone on the same page.
“The fact that your star player is smarter than you, that’s a hard job to have. Like, you literally have to talk to LeBron’s ego. I got to talk to his basketball, for him to accept you,” said Arenas on Gil’s Arena.
Arenas used the example of Michael Jordan and the late Kobe Bryant to illustrate his point. They were both coached by Phil Jackson. MJ and Kobe had issues with other coaches because they didn’t respect them like they respected the Zen Master.
Impressing LeBron while talking basketball isn’t an easy task. The podcast’s panel believes that JJ Redick was able to get the job in LA after managing to do exactly that.
When LBJ and Redick teamed up for the Mind the Game podcast, LeBron possibly saw that JJ was at a higher level than Ham. “Something that JJ was saying resonated with [LeBron],” added Arenas.
LeBron and Darvin Ham were destined to fail 📉 pic.twitter.com/YDje0EhPfX
— Gilbert Arenas (@GilsArenaShow) December 22, 2024
Meanwhile Ham, after the sudden exit, went on to join the Milwaukee Bucks as assistant to Doc Rivers. He seems to have not forgotten or forgiven the Lakers though.
Ham talked about the Lakers exit after winning the NBA Cup
Ham recently spoke about his exit from LA with Andscape. The coach believes he did his best, and that had he achieved the same with any other team, he’d have received a contract extension. Instead, he was fired. The veteran coach described how he pulled the team out of a slump and took them to the Conference Finals in the 2023 playoffs.
“They go from not making the playoffs to the Conference Finals, and we won the in-season tournament… people always talk about us losing to Denver, but they don’t talk about how we got to Denver. We beat a kick-a** young squad in Memphis, and we beat Stephen Curry and Golden State,” said Ham.
The coach had a difficult start with the Bucks as well. They were losing games and didn’t seem to click as a team.
However, it didn’t take him long to take control of their season working with Rivers. Ham’s team recently won the NBA Cup, his back-to-back win in the in-season tournament.
