Darvin Ham Has Been Hired By The Bucks

According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the Milwaukee Bucks have hired former Los Angeles Lakers head coach Darvin Ham to a contract.

Ham will be Doc Rivers’s top assistant coach, as this is a reunion between the team and the 50-year-old coach.

When Mike Budenholzer was Milwaukee’s head coach, Ham was employed on his coaching staff. He was there from 2018 to 2021, the year he was hired by Rob Pelinka to coach the Lakers.

Lakers Most Likely To Fire Darvin Ham In Coming Days

According to The Ahtletic’s Jovan Buha, it is looking like the end is near for Darvin Ham with the Los Angeles Lakers. It’s believed him replacing Frank Vogel was not the right solution.

Los Angeles’ front office wanted to do their due diligence first to ensure they aren’t making any bad decisions, but they are most likely coming to the conclusion of moving on and hiring a new coach.

“The latest I’ve heard is the plan is still to move on from Darvin at some point, likely by the end of the week. Potentially as early as [Thursday]. Then, the head coaching search will start. I’ve already started to hear some names from different people… From what I’ve heard over the last couple of days, the plan is still to move on from Darvin.”

One of the main reasons Ham wasn’t immediately fired was that they didn’t want to repeat the outburst over how they handled Vogel’s firing.

“I think they caught a lot of flak for how the Frank Vogel situation happened where he was essentially fired at the buzzer and had to do a press conference with us and he was asked about it. It was just a really awkward situation. The Lakers didn’t formally announce it until the next morning and then tried to say that was how it all played out.”

General manager Rob Pelinka has yet to do his season exit interview, as the Lakers did theirs following Game 5’s loss to Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets.

Darvin Ham’s Job Secured By The Lakers

After reports came out by The Athletic saying Darvin Ham was losing the locker room, it appears that the exact opposite is happening in Los Angeles.

According to Chris Haynes from Bleacher Report, Jeanie Buss and Rob Pelinka are backing their head coach and willing to endure the pain of their struggles. There is no decision to make an in-season change to their coaching staff.

Since he has gotten support from the top, Ham’s only focus should now be to lead this team back to their winning ways. It should also be noted how well of a relationship both Ham and Pelinka have with each other.

“I speak to Rob every day, and we’re always discussing ways to improve our team and what we can do better as a coaching staff,” Ham told B/R after falling to 19-20 on the season. “It’s an open dialogue that I embrace and that is helpful. We’re all trying to get this right, and we will.”