Lakers hire Ham as coach
How can new coach Darvin Ham help the Los Angeles Lakers get back into NBA title contention?
On Friday, just before Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the Lakers settled on the longtime Milwaukee Bucks assistant as a replacement for Frank Vogel, who was fired on April 11.
Ham came with Mike Budenholzer to Milwaukee from the Atlanta Hawks and was part of the Bucks’ overnight development into contenders, culminating in the 2021 title.
Most recently, in 2020, the Lakers were still in the spotlight at this point in the playoffs en route to the 17th championship in franchise history. Over the next two years, they won just two playoff games, missing out on even the play-in tournament by finishing this season 11th in the Western Conference.
To be sure, the Lakers’ problems began with a deeply flawed roster after last summer’s trade for point guard Russell Westbrook. How can Ham try to make the most of a group that seems unlikely to change drastically? And how can Lakers management put their new coach in a better position to succeed than Vogel?
Let’s look at the task ahead in Lakerland.
How Ham can maximize Westbrook
The first challenge for Ham and his coaching staff, which will include assistants with NBA head coaching experience, according to Wojnarowski, is to maximize Westbrook’s value during the final year of his contract. Giving up draft picks to trade Westbrook or taking on bad long-term contracts makes little sense for the Lakers, so Ham should plan to have him on the roster.
The best way to maximize the former MVP is to make sure Westbrook plays with four shooters at all times. Last season, lineups with Westbrook and Dwight Howard or DeAndre Jordan were outscored by 8.6 points per 100 possessions outside of garbage time with an offensive rating that ranked in the 12th percentile league-wide according to Cleaning the Glass. And while the Lakers were always better off with smaller lineups, those with Howard or Jordan but not Westbrook were more competitive (net rating of minus-4.3 with an offensive rating near the NBA average).
After seeing the way the addition of Brook Lopez as a stretch-5 opened things up for Giannis Antetokounmpo and the rest of Milwaukee’s offense, Ham probably doesn’t need to be convinced of the value of shooting. Given that there is no one like that on the Lakers’ roster or likely to be added this offseason, starting Anthony Davis at center is the easiest way to accomplish this.
Getting Davis’ buy-in on this plan will be key. While he has previously resisted a full-time role in the middle, last season’s results could make him an easier sell (the Lakers could also consider playing him at power forward at times with Westbrook on the bench).
Next, Ham needs to convince Westbrook about adjusting his game, something we have yet to see since he left the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Getting Westbrook involved as a screener is an ideal way to minimize his deficiencies as a shooter.
The 2021-22 Lakers tested that strategy in precisely one game. According to Second Spectrum’s tracking, Westbrook set eight screens in the team’s second game of the season, a home loss to the Memphis Grizzlies. According to Second Spectrum, Westbrook never again set more than four screens in a game all season.
Without being in the coaches’ office, we don’t know how much Vogel’s staff pushed the idea of using Westbrook to set screens and what kind of reaction they received from him. Thanks to the combination of his long-term contract and Westbrook’s expiring one, Ham should enter those discussions with more clout than Vogel.
Defining the rotation
Instability marked the Lakers’ 2021-22 season. They had 41 starting lineups in 82 games, the second most in the NBA behind the Brooklyn Nets (43), and were the only team that did not have a single group of five players playing at least 100 minutes together.
It wasn’t all the fault of the coaching staff. The Lakers were plagued by repeated injuries to key players, and the three-star nature of the roster forced them to try a number of role players signed for the veteran minimum, most of whom failed to deliver.
