The hiring of the Lakers head coach is faster than expected. The original Lakers executives set the deadline for hiring a head coach before this draft, around the end of June, in order to determine the direction of the team before the draft and the free market. Players who fit into the new coaching system. According to media sources, the Lakers head coach seat was screened to the last three people, namely Warriors assistant Kenny Atkinson, former Blazers head coach Terry Stotts, and Bucks assistant Darvin Ham. This article will briefly introduce the above three potential Lakers head coaches, describe their achievements in the league so far, and then discuss the impact of the Lakers’ executives on this hiring.
3 head coach candidates
Terry Stotts
Let’s start with Terry Stotts, the former Blazers head coach who went 402-318 in nine seasons and led the team to eight in nine seasons. In the playoffs, in the 2018-2019 season, the team even reached the Western Conference finals, which can be described as a highlight of his coaching career. However, the fact that he coached a record of only 22-40 in the playoffs, and he is also a coach with very clear strengths and weaknesses, the advantage is to build a good relationship with the team’s star players, such as the Blazers star players Damian Lillard had a very good player-coach relationship with Terry Stotts, but the downside was that the defensive system he built wasn’t very successful.
While this had to do with the limited defensive talent of the team, led by Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum at the time, there’s no denying that Terry Stotts was by no means a defensive coach. This is not very consistent with the direction of the Lakers team. The Lakers’ top management should prefer a coach who prioritizes team defense. This can be seen from the fact that the Lakers hired Frank Vogel as head coach three years ago. , so Terry Stotts’ chances of becoming the Lakers’ head coach aren’t that great.
Kenny Atkinson
Kenny Atkinson, who is currently an assistant coach for the Warriors, has also served as the head coach of the team like Terry Stotts. He served as the head coach of the Nets for three seasons from 2017 to 2020. During these 4 years, he has trained many young players, including young players such as D’Angelo Russell, Spencer Dinwiddie and Caris LeVert, and the team even led the team to the playoffs in the 2018-2019 season, even if In the end, they lost in the first round to the 76ers who had star players such as Joel Embid, Ben Simmons, Tobias Harris and Jimmy Butler at the time, but you must know that the only star player in the team at that time was D’Angelo Russell. And that year was only his first season in the playoffs.
With the introduction of star players such as Kyrie Irving Kevin Durant, the team cast a vote of no confidence in Atkinson, dismissed him, and replaced him with a star with a higher star and a higher status in NBA history. Steve Nash. Therefore, we can roughly understand that Kenny Atkinson is a coach who is good at nurturing young players, but his experience in coaching in the playoffs is not enough. I believe this will make the Lakers have some doubts regarding Atkinson.
Darvin Ham
The last head coaching candidate was assistant Darvin Ham from the Bucks. He is the only one of the three candidates who has played in the NBA as a player, and even won the championship with the Pistons in the 2003-2004 season. And his coaching career started in 2008, following coaching several minor league teams, he served as an assistant for the Lakers in 2011, so believe him to the Lakers – the first NBA ball to give him a coaching job The team must not be unfamiliar. After leaving the Lakers, he joined Mike Budenholzer’s team, followed him to the Eagles and the Bucks, and won his second championship last year as an assistant coach for the Bucks.
Since Darvin Ham followed Mike Budenholzer, and Budenholzer became Gregg Popovich’s right hand when he was the head coach of the Spurs, he became the team’s assistant coach at that time, so it can be said that Budenholzer’s coaching style system has Popovich’s DNA, while another A head coach who also has Popovich DNA is former Huang Feng head coach James Borrego. Since both of the aforementioned coaches have received a lot of positive parity in the league, we can believe that Darvin Ham – a coach who also has Popovich DNA in it – will be successful when he becomes head coach.
In the league, many people believe that Darvin Ham can become the head coach of an NBA team one day, and believe that he is only missing a chance at the moment. Although he doesn’t have any experience leading an NBA team, whether it’s developing players, such as developing Giannis Antetokounmpo from an All-Star to an MVP-level player with the Bucks, or coaching football The team’s experience in winning the playoffs, such as coaching the playoffs as an assistant during the Eagles and Bucks respectively, not to mention his final championship in the playoffs last year, can be Seeing him on a rebuilding team or on a title contender might make a difference. More importantly, Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka revealed that he hopes that the next head coach can make the players play 100% of their strength, or even make them better, and Darvin, who is good at communicating with players and improving player strength. Ham will have a lot of advantages in this regard, and the major media are optimistic that he will eventually win the position of Lakers head coach as a dark horse.