It took more than a month, but the Los Angeles Lakers have finally concluded their search of a new head coach by hiring Darvin Ham, who had been working for the Milwaukee Bucks as an assistant coach.
Frank Vogel was fired as soon as the 2021-22 NBA regular season came to an end after the Lakers finished 11th in the West with a 33-49 record. Now, Ham has a challenging job in trying to turn their fortunes around.
But many people around the league have shown excitement for his hiring, and it wasn’t just the players he worked with. Draymond Green, for instance, has also weighed in on his arrival at Los Angeles.
Draymond Green reacts to Lakers hiring Darvin Ham
Green may have not been coached by Ham, but he has been a role model for him for a long time. Both were born in the small city of Saginaw, so Green grew up admiring the current Lakers coach.
“Growing up, could see that — ‘that’s Darv, in the NBA’ — and you want that,” Green told Dan Woike of the LA Times. “That’s your dream, too. And to see him come back and be able to touch him, to go to his camps. It was like, ‘Yo, I could possibly do that one day.’
“I think he’s going to bring a toughness, a blue-collar mentality just because that’s how he’s built. That’s how he’s raised. You have to be that way from Saginaw. I think it’ll be a different toughness that they haven’t seen. And he’s going to command and require a different respect level that they haven’t really have had. … And I think that will bode well for that team.”
Now, the Lakers can move on to the next stage which is to make roster decisions. They have to decide what to do with Russell Westbrook and figure out ways to improve for next season, hoping to be contenders again.
