National Basketball Association

From LeBron James to Darvin Ham, Lakers face uncertainty following first-round exit

Published Apr. 30, 2024 11:40 a.m. ET

When Darvin Ham was hired to replace Frank Vogel as the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers in June 2022, there was a sense of optimism.

Ham was charming, straight-forward, confident. He spoke about surviving being shot in the face as a teenager in Saginaw, Michigan. "It made me fearless," he said at the time. He seemed like a person who could get buy-in from LeBron James and Anthony Davis, not an easy task for a first-time head coach.

Fast-forward to Monday.

After the Lakers were eliminated by the Denver Nuggets in Game 5 of their first-round playoff series, 108-106, there was a sense that something had to give. And if history is telling, it'll likely be the coach, considering the Lakers have had 12 since Phil Jackson was last at the helm.

"Sitting in this seat, it's been a hell of a two years," said Ham, who went from leading the Lakers to the Western Conference Finals last postseason to enduring "Fire Darvin" chants from his home crowd this time around.

Ham's future will be one of the many questions the Lakers face this offseason.

What will LeBron James decide to do with his $51.4 million player option for 2024-25? Will the Lakers draft James' son, Bronny? Will D'Angelo Russell opt into his $18.7 million deal for next season? Will general manager Rob Pelinka shoulder the blame for not upgrading the roster? Will the Lakers be able to make the necessary roster upgrades around James and Davis?

For now, James evaded questions about his future.

Was there any thought that this could've been your last game with the Lakers?

"Ummmmm, I'm not going to answer that," said James, who had 30 points, nine rebounds and 11 assists in the loss.

Do you still want to play with Bronny?

"I don't know," he added. "I haven't given it much thought lately. Obviously, I've thought about it in the past. But at the end of the day, the kid has to do what he wants to do. I don't even want to say ‘kid' no more."

For the Lakers, it's a shame this season skidded to such an undesirable end considering their stars shined.

James once again defied Father Time, averaging 25.7 points, three times more than anyone in their 21st season. He also shot a career-high 41% from beyond the arc.

Davis played a career-high 76 games, helping shed the oft-injured narrative, while averaging 24.7 points and a career-high 12.6 rebounds.

But there were extended injuries to Christian Wood, Jarred Vanderbilt and Gabe Vincent. There was a blur of lineup changes. And Ham was often blamed for the Lakers' inability to win despite the team's stars mostly being available and playing exceedingly well.

For the Lakers, it was yet another disappointing season that felt disjointed, with the team seemingly getting their act together too late. Following their In-Season Tournament victory in December, there was hope they could win the trophy they really desired months later.

Instead, they struggled to find their identity, and it became questionable whether they'd even make the playoffs. When the Lakers closed the season winning 12 of their final 15 games, there was renewed optimism they could make a similar run to last year, when they went from 10th place in the Western Conference to the penultimate round.

But winning their play-in game against New Orleans was a double-edged sword, because while it meant clinching the seventh seed, it set them up for a doomsday matchup against the reigning NBA champions, who swept them out of the playoffs last season.

The Lakers actually matched up well against Denver for much of the series. They led for the vast majority of it – 165 minutes compared to the Nuggets' 59 minutes. But the Lakers kept letting those leads slip through their fingers like grains of sand, crumbling in the third quarter of games.

At least Game 5 was an all-out battle between two heavyweights. There were 16 lead changes and 10 ties. Neither team led by double digits. And the game came down to the final seconds, when Jamal Murray made his second game-winning shot of the series, this time sealing things with a 14-foot pull-up jumper with four seconds left.

Now, the Lakers will be thrust into uncertainty.

As for Davis, who has played alongside James for five seasons, including winning a championship with him in 2020, he said he'd try to do his part to make sure James returns.

"If he kinda asks my opinion or whenever we talk about it, I'm obviously going to try to recruit him back," said Davis, who had 17 points and 15 rebounds in the loss. "But, ultimately, he's old enough where he's going to make a decision whatever's best for him and his family, knowing that his time is limited in this league, probably a couple of more years left. His goal is obviously to win. And I feel like we can do that here."

James and Davis will now turn their attention to USA Basketball, trying to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games in Paris this summer.

Meanwhile, Ham will be thrust into the unknown.

What started out with unbridled optimism has fractured. Signs of that intensified throughout the postseason, with Davis claiming after the Lakers blew a 20-point lead in Game 2 that the team had stretches where they "don't know what we're doing." Then James clearly showed his frustration after Ham didn't challenge an out-of-bounds play in the fourth quarter of Game 4.

But, ultimately, things came down to Monday.

For a franchise that has won 17 NBA championships, tied with the Boston Celtics for the most in league history, losing in the first round just isn't acceptable.

And for Ham, that could mean he coached his final game for the Lakers.

Fearless or not, it's clearly time to be concerned.

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Melissa Rohlin is an NBA writer for FOX Sports. She previously covered the league for Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Times, the Bay Area News Group and the San Antonio Express-News. Follow her on Twitter @melissarohlin.

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