SOON

Lakers guard D’Angelo Russell on his player option: “When I signed my contract last year, I knew what position I was going to put myself in, so to be in that position now with a little leverage, I’ll try to take advantage of it.”

Anthony Davis says he will "absolutely" do what he can to keep LeBron James with the Lakers.

"Good thing about it is I'm gonna be with him all summer... He knows how I feel about him."

Then sign KPJ

"It's been extremely challenging," Ham said. "Everyone that's been in and out of the lineup. Being criticized for not having a consistent rotation when I don't have consistent healthy bodies. The thing that frustrates me, and I love this job, I love the pressure that comes with it, I've always been calm in the midst of chaos ... But common sense tends to go out the window when you talk about my job in particular.

espn.com/nba/story/_/id/40054328/nba-playoffs-2024-future-lebron-james-darvin-ham-lakers-their-game-5-exit

I’m down

"It's amazing how people just skip that core part of having a consistency with your lineup is all predicated on health and performance. If you're coaching a team and one of your starters is like 10 games in a row, just s---ing the bed, what are you going to do?"

espn.com/nba/story/_/id/40054328/nba-playoffs-2024-future-lebron-james-darvin-ham-lakers-their-game-5-exit

"The Lakers won their first three games of February and the trade deadline passed without Lakers vice president of basketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka making any deals.

While James privately hoped L.A. would part with either its 2029 or 2030 first-round draft pick to upgrade its talent for a postseason push, sources told ESPN, he immediately shifted into recruiter mode.

James pitched guard Spencer Dinwiddie on signing with the Lakers after being bought out of his contract with the Brooklyn Nets.

Dinwiddie told ESPN that James' appeal, perhaps even more than returning to play for his hometown team, was instrumental in his decision."

"Yet rather than the team's resiliency being applauded as the prevailing sentiment surrounding the late-season success, multiple team sources told ESPN that the Lakers should have -- or even would have -- finished better than No. 7 in the West and avoided the play-in tournament had Ham settled on that starting lineup much sooner.

"The job of a coach is to make the best out of what you have," one team source told ESPN. "And he wasn't doing that."

Posturing for the future already seemingly began before the series was over. Davis appeared to call out Lakers coaches following the Game 2 loss in which the Lakers blew a 20-point lead in Denver.

"We have stretches where we just don't know what we're doing on both ends of the floor," he said.

Ham took exception to the comments, telling reporters he has an "incredibly talented" staff that prides itself in being "highly efficient and organized" and addressed Davis privately, while publicly rebuffing him.

"I'll agree to disagree on that one," Ham said.

"A team source was confounded by Ham's lack of accountability, questioning to ESPN the merit in boasting about his coaching staff's preparedness while the Nuggets ran their win streak against them into double-digits.

Ham's adjustments, or lack thereof, stood out so much that Nuggets coach Michael Malone said in between Games 2 and 3 that his team had "gone over adjustments for different players and play-calls that we haven't even had to show yet."

Ham and the coaching staff would rather watch Dinwiddie do nothing than play Reaves in a must win game with the season on the line.

Defend this one bro

My favorite Ham quote

yea I guess it's all in our heads. Ham isn't to blame. Everyone is tripping (sarcasm)

Taurean Prince aint tripping. Ham helped him secure the bag !

This nigga SPITTIN, if Isaac could magically be healthy.

It’s honestly insane that the IST title really saved Ham from being fired mid season…. He lost the locker room and still managed to stay the entire season

PLEASE YES PLEASE GOD

Offseason we need to obviously resign Bron but for the love of god get a capable big man to help AD down low

Bron needs to chill lol