Head Coach Discussion: Canned Ham, Who Is Our New Coach?

The team has never quit on Darvin. We might not always win, but we never quit.

 

Chewed some a** at halftime.

 

I know it had to hurt inside a little for Ham when he went to that 3 center line up but it freaking worked. All 3 stupid athletic and mobile... so much better than his 3 guard line ups.

 

I think we should go huge with this depth chart:

Dlo/Gabe
Vando/Austin
Lebron/Prince
AD/Rui
Wood/Hayes

I know Vando isn’t a sg. On offense Lebron and Dlo are the primary ball handlers with Vando slashing and spotting up. On defense Vando guards the best perimeter players.

 

This is what I love the most with Ham. It's night and day. It's literally every night since day 1, we can be losing by 20 but we are always fighting back and don't have blowout losses

 

Can we get some blowout wins though. Love the fight but thats tiring

 

They'll come for sure, but team is not there yet. Good thing that what we ask for are 'blowout wins'

 

If I was the Clipper and heard the word blowout, I'm immediately thinking toilets.

It's good to be a Laker Fan

 

I never like injuries, but the silver lining is Ham is being forced to go bigger and to give Max minutes. Two things that should have been being done already. The scary part is the extra minutes put on AD and LeBron. The Cam/Christie defensive combo will be important as the season goes on. Through injuries you miss players, but opportunities are given to others. Up to Max and Cam to take advantage. Good start against the clips, but they are just our jv team, so we'll see when they play real NBA players. I will be curious if Ham, despite the evidence that our bigger line ups are better, granted small sample size, but clearly better, will shrink it down again when everyone is healthy? Coach Ham is doing some good things, we are 3-2 despite an unfriendly schedule and injuries and the guys are playing hard. If Ham can figure out line ups and rotations and how to use AD effectively, we should be good. It was nice to see defenders, Cam/Max, get low and play defense. Austin, DLO and Gabe could do that too if they just would. Just my personal preference, but I much prefer watching the hardnose defenders get low and fight vs the guys that focus more on offense and get smoked continually on defense. Some of our guys have gotten too comfortable with their minutes. I would love to see a lineup of AD, LeCoach, CW, Cam and Max consistently locking teams up. Throwing Jaxson in there at times. Defense first coach.

 

Ham's got an issue he's got to figure out and I'm not sure what the easiest solution is...

This year teams are pulling AD out to the perimeter more than I've ever seen, leaving no one under the basket to rebound. Bron in year 21 isn't boxing out and fighting for boards at the rate we need someone to when AD is at the 3 point line when the shot goes up. That's an unrealistic ask for Bron at this point.

So put another big out there, right? That's probably all we can do but Wood only grabbed 2 rebounds last night and the 3 C lineup didn't do well either. And I haven't seen enough from Hayes in the regular season to feel comfortable with him as the sole backup big (looked a lot better in pre-season). Vando will help when he eventuality gets back, but we can't wait till then.

Guards also have to do a much better job crashing the glass to make up for this wrinkle, they're not. I also don't think we'll win the rebounding battle of AR/DLO/Gabe vs a big in the paint. Those guys aren't athletic or strong enough to win that battle.

Another strategy I've seen a lot against AD early is when he scores in the paint, the other team is flying down the court to get into their play within a few seconds because AD will be trailing. Our guys have to cover for him and run their lethargic a**** down the court and buy him time to get back defensively.

 

We've been outrebounded in 3 out of 6 games, twice by Orlando.We are 2-1 in those 3 games.

The perimeter shooting is more of a problem. It would be nice if D'Angelo and Austin, could get it going in the same game. Especially now, with some rotation guys out.

 

Ham will be given rope to figure this out, but I’m losing a bit of confidence in him.

 

I'm really glad to hear Ham calling these guys out for their lazy uninspired play. First thing he has done in awhile I can really get behind. This is the version of Ham I thought we hired. Now back to defense first.

 

love to see a link to an interview with that if you have it

 

Trevor Lane was talking about it on Lakers Nation. He had the quote on screen. I will look for a link.

 

Darvin Ham CALLS OUT Lakers, Hints At Larger Problem| Should Ham Shoulder Blame Too? - YouTube

 

can i interest you in a blowout loss?

i think just putting a body on your guy and taking responsibility on that end should be enough.

and AD needs to recover all the way to the paint on defense after he attempts a shot in the paint on offense. this would be easier if we could get his minutes back closer to 32 than 38, though. other bigs aren't asked to do this, and as you said, teams know that our other 4 aren't going to hustle to make up for AD's slower recovery.

everybody has to simply play harder than they have, particularly in doing the little things like closing out, boxing out, helping and recovering, and changing ends on both offense and defense.

and yes, not having 4 rotation guys definitely impacts this, but not taking the preseason seriously in any way also impacted this.

i'll hold my my most intense whining until i see how this upcoming 10-game stretch goes, but if we're not well above .500 after that, i'll be pretty antsy and rethinking the team's ceiling after i was optimistic this summer.

 

the complete and utter lack of focus for the preseason was disturbing to me. No serious attempt at dialing in the lineups or working on winning the games/setting the tone. Just not a fan of not caring much.

 

They get what 5 days of camp and practice and then have to start pre-season games. When else are you supposed to experiment with different combinations of players and new guys? Plus understandably LeBron easing into it every other game and same with Reaves after FIBA summer. And core defense piece Vando out after 1st game. Lots to try and work on.