You don’t have to be an NBA expert to know that the Los Angeles Lakers need to make a lot of changes as soon as possible.
As everyone remembers, the team was a joke in the 2021-22 season and couldn’t even make the play-in tournament.
Instead, they settled for 11th place in the West and an embarrassing 33-49 record.
That was with LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook, and others.
Ouch.
After the firing of Frank Vogel, it was obvious that new head coach Darvin Ham was going to shake things up.
Reporting with @wojespn: New Lakers coach Darvin Ham has started to shape his coaching staff by informing assistants David Fizdale, Mike Penberthy and John Lucas III they will not be retained.
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) June 7, 2022
That is exactly what he’s doing.
Ham has begun to put together his new coaching staff for the upcoming season.
That means that he recently told assistant coaches David Fizdale, Mike Penberthy, and John Lucas III that they will not return to the team.
It was surely a tough choice but it’s for the best of the team.
Ham isn’t messing around and he is showing he’ll do what it takes to get the team back on track.
A New Staff & Future
Vogel, Fizdale, Penberthy, and Lucas are all good people but it’s obvious that what they were doing just wasn’t working for the Lakers.
It’s still jaw-dropping to see how poorly the team did even with all the talent involved.
Ham is taking the right approach to make some cuts and change the direction of his staff.
He is already finding replacements for the laid-off assistants and they look to be people he is very familiar and comfortable with.
That bodes well for staff chemistry but will it lead to results that’ll make fans happy?
Hopefully, because Ham has a huge task ahead of him.
Anything less than a huge turnaround will only rile up the fanbase even more – and could make Ham’s first year coaching the team his last.
NEXT: Lakers Already Looking To Add Veterans To The Roster