The Lakers and Bucks are set to square off later this evening and no one is more hyped than Bucks assistant coach Darvin Ham. How do we know this? Because Doc Rivers spoke to the media earlier today and detailed how Ham views tonight as a revenge game against his old team.
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Ham has an impressive track record as an assistant coach in the NBA, which included him helping the Pistons capture a title back in 2004. The now 51-year-old tried to bring his winning ways to the Lakers when he was hired as the purple and gold’s head coach in 2022. Despite bringing his team to the Western Conference finals in 2023 and winning the play-in tournament in 2024 he was not able to get past the Nuggets in back-to-back playoff years.
It would seem that Ham’s small successes would earn him another year in Los Angeles. Wrong. He was shockingly fired shortly after the 2024 postseason and joined the Bucks as Rivers’ assistant coach soon after. Now he’s back in the City of Angels, and ready to kick some LA behind according to his colleague.
“Yeah, he told me he wants to kick the Lakers’ ass,” said Rivers per beat writer Mark Medina.
Bucks coach Doc Rivers asked if Darvin Ham views this game as a revenge game against the Lakers. Doc joked, “Yeah, he told me he wants to kick the Lakers’ ass.”
— Mark Medina (@MarkG_Medina) March 21, 2025
The faults of the 2022-2024 Lakers squad somehow all landed on Ham’s lap. The injury woes/struggles of Anthony Davis didn’t seem to matter, nor the fact that the Ham-led Lakers still rallied to the Conference finals as a 7th seed in 2023, and went through a tough Memphis and Golden State team to do it. It’s the losses to the Nuggets that seemingly cost him his job, something Ham himself was shocked over at the time.
“To do as well as I did, I swear to God, anywhere else I’m probably looking at an extension with what I did,” Ham said to CBS Sports. “I’m not talking about feelings. I’m talking actual facts. People always talk about us losing to Denver, but they never talk about how we got to Denver.”
Sure, it can also be argued that Darvin had long lost the locker room before having gotten canned by the purple and gold’s top brass. His offensive schemes weren’t intuitive enough and their defense simply was not consistent enough to bang with the West’s heavy hitters on a consistent basis.
Regardless, Dam sure chose a lame time for a revenge game. Tonight’s matchup will see both squads without several of their superstar players. Neither LeBron James nor Luka Doncic will be suiting up for the Lakers, and the Bucks will be without Dame Lillard.
The game might not be the powerhouse showdown fans were expecting when they looked at the schedule a month ago, but if the Bucks do walk away with a win it will certainly give Dam a little bit of retribution.
