3 things Darvin Ham can do to save his job with the Lakers

Over the first 25 games of the season, the Los Angeles Lakers felt like an organization in the title mix. They were 15-10, owned a top-five defense, Anthony Davis and LeBron James were healthy and playing at All-NBA levels, and they had just won the NBA In-Season Tournament. Everything was right on course, and the team looked much like the squad that made a run to the Western Conference Finals last season under the guidance of head coach Darvin Ham. 

The Lakers have stumbled their past 12 games

However, over the last 12 games, the Lakers season has come crashing down. They’ve gone 3-9, dropping their overall record to 18-19, and their defense has disintegrated, and that’s with LeBron and Davis being healthy and effective. The Lakers have no excuses for their poor play, and now Darvin Ham’s job security is being challenged daily. 

While the sky may be falling for the Lakers right now, Ham is also the coach who turned around a 2-10 team and got them to the Western Conference Finals. These are the three things Ham can do to save his job and the Lakers’ season. 

3. Get the Lakers defense back on track

The Lakers are built around a dominant defense, or they were. Over their first 25 games, they posted a defensive rating of 112.1, a figure that would rank sixth in the league. In the ensuing 12 games, they’ve posted a 118.3 defensive rating, which would be 25th. On the season, they’re ranked 10th in defense, which would be fine if their offense had any hope of being a top-10 unit.

With their current personnel, the Lakers cannot consistently outscore their opponents, but they can bludgeon the opposition into submission on the defensive end. If Darvin Ham wants to save his job, he needs the Lakers to be great at what they were meant to be great at. With Anthony Davis playing at this level, that isn’t a huge ask. 

2. Dominate the free throw line

The Lakers’ biggest advantage, on a night-to-night basis, has been their edge at the free throw line. On defense, they allow the fewest opponent free throw attempts per 100 possessions in the league, and on offense, they rank 10th in free throw attempts per 100 possessions. On the season, they average a 4.4 edge in free throw attempts per game, but that figure has been trending down during their 3-9 run. 

Over their first 25 games, the Lakers averaged 25.1 free throw attempts per game against 18.6 for their opponents, and it led to a 4.7 per game edge in made free throws per game. At their best, the Lakers used the free throw line to have a nearly five-point edge every game. 

However, over the past 12 games, the Lakers have seen that edge completely disappear. They’ve seen their free throw attempts per game drop to 21.8, while their opponents have risen to 21.7. The Lakers losing their five-point free throw edge doesn’t completely explain their downtick in production, but it does explain 67.1 percent of it. If the Lakers want to get back on track, they absolutely need to start winning the free throw battle again.

1. Keep Austin Reaves in the starting lineup

Here’s a novel idea. If you’re not the San Antonio Spurs helmed by Tim Duncan, start your three best players. Austin Reaves had a lackluster start to the season, averaging 11.0 points per game on 34.5 percent shooting over his first five games, and prompted Ham to move him to the bench in their ninth game. 

Since moving Reaves to the bench, he has averaged 15.8 points per game on 50.2 percent shooting. The uptick in production led Ham to move Reaves back into the starting lineup over the past three games, but he needs to stay there no matter what. The Lakers do not have a talented enough roster to bring Reaves off the bench. 

The Lakers need Reaves’ offense to keep their offense out of the bottom third and to ease the on-ball burden on LeBron James. He hasn’t taken the leap to an All-Star as some Laker fans had hoped, but he’s still a very good starting caliber player and possesses more upside than D’Angelo Russell. 

The Lakers’ problems are fixable, but Darvin Ham needs to fix them now if he wants to keep his job. The expectations for a Lakers team helmed by LeBron James are different. Mediocrity is a disaster, and anything short of contention is a letdown. The roster isn’t particularly deep, and Ham’s continuous tinkering is a sign of that reality, but the combination of players is there for the Lakers to be an elite defense that gets to the free throw line enough to be an average or better offense. Remember, the Lakers went 2-10 over a 12-game span last season, and Darvin Ham turned it around. There’s no reason to believe he can’t do it again.