The Los Angeles Lakers came into the 2023-24 season with a winning mindset. However, somewhere down the line, things got a little sloppy and now they’re struggling to keep up with the league. Even though it is quite early in the season, the first few games are important to win. This helps the Lakers build confidence and overcome the pressure of potentially making last-minute runs.
In their most recent matchup, the Lakers were defeated by the Philadelphia 76ers. They made history, but not in a good way. LA witnessed their fourth biggest loss in franchise history, which isn’t a good look. Fans have started to attack Darvin Ham for not coaching the team well. One fan said, “The problem here is coaching. Ham isn’t a great leader.” Another fan said, “Phil Jackson would not tolerate this mess.”
The problem here is coaching
Ham isn’t a great leader— Coach Chris (@thecoachchris_) November 28, 2023
Phil Jackson would not tolerate this mess
— EC (@ShaGrizzz) November 28, 2023
The Lakers were defeated by 44 points against the Sixers. And clearly, their defenses weren’t too active either. Even LeBron James was extremely frustrated with the number of open looks and paths that were given up by D’Angelo Russell and Taurean Prince. Similarly, the Lakers faced an upsetting 49-point loss against the Dallas Mavericks in 2017. They also had a few more tragic losses during the 90s and late 2000s. However, the Lakers roster wasn’t as well built as they right now.
Darvin Ham blames the Lakers’ loss on a lack of consistency
During the game, LeBron recorded 18 points and 7 assists while grabbing zero rebounds. Anthony Davis had a fairly decent game of 17 points, 11 rebounds, and 2 assists. However, nobody from the Lakers roster had more than 20 points against the Sixers. LA was almost absent on defense while the Sixers towered over them in the same category. Head Coach Darvin Ham had a few issues to blame the loss on, and one of them was a lack of consistency.
During the post-game press conference, he said, “Teams are going to come out and swing with their hardest punch. Especially when they’re against the Lakers… there were some calls that didn’t go our way. Some shots we normally make, we got some great looks in that first quarter that didn’t go down.”
“When you’re an NBA player man, there is no such thing in my opinion as garbage minutes.” Darvin Ham speaks on the energy and effort despite being down. pic.twitter.com/34dzFWC7rF
— Spectrum SportsNet (@SpectrumSN) November 28, 2023
Ham added, “This team puts you in a position where you’ve got to give multiple efforts… they have championship aspirations, so do we. But in the short term, you’re competitive spirit has to be at a high level. It almost has to be bulletproof to a certain degree… I thought, at different segments, they out-hustled us and got some offensive rebounds.”
“They made some shots and I thought we kind of dropped our heads a little bit. We’re dealing with a lot of adversity right now with injuries in the like. I’m not making excuses… we showed different moments in that game that we had enough to do what we needed to do. It just wasn’t consistent enough,” he concluded.
Consistency had been a major issue with the Lakers since the start of the season. However, Darvin Ham is solely responsible for bringing that consistency out of his players. But the Lakers have been dealing with a lot of injuries over the last few weeks. Davis has also admitted that he’s playing through an injury and isn’t fully healthy.