The Lakers have now lost 9 of their last 12 games and things are starting to feel uncomfortable in the team’s locker room. The Los Angeles squad’s performances have dropped catastrophically ever since they conquered the first-ever In-Season Tournament, as reports now suggest that the organization is losing their patience with Darvin Ham.
Many sources are talking about a deep disconnection between the roster and their coach, as his job is now in question. The Heat recently played them without their superstar Jimmy Butler and beat the L.A. squad 110-96 at the Crypto.com Arena on Wednesday night.
Now the purple and gold have dropped to a 17-18 record, and it is the first time they’ve been below .500 since the start of November.
There’s a “deepening disconnect” between Darvin Ham and Lakers locker room stemming from extreme rotation and starting lineup adjustments, per @ShamsCharania and @jovanbuha pic.twitter.com/xTySfQqVwE
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) January 4, 2024
Even some players have started to expose the tense ambience inside the Lakers’ locker room, but understand that this feeling is normal when you are on a losing streak.
“We’re losing,” Austin Reaves said this week. “Anytime you lose, the vibe should be off, you know? If I went in there and the vibe wasn’t off after the rough stretch that we’ve had, then I’d be concerned.”
The 25-year-old then explained that this atmosphere is not due to problems between the players, which is a different tone from the internal issues that happened last year with Russell Westbrook’s departure.
“When I say the vibe is off, it’s not like we don’t like each other,” Reaves assured. “It’s we’re losing. We should be pissed off. We shouldn’t be happy after games with how we’re playing. But I don’t want to get that twisted on us not liking each other. Everybody in the locker room gets along.”
Ham insists that the team is struggling because they haven’t enjoyed a healthy roster these past weeks
Despite the fact that the Lakers have used LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Austin Reaves and D’Angelo Russell for the past eight games combined, their coach believes that the team won’t “find any consistency” until the other players recover completely.
Currently, Rui Hachimura and Gabe Vincent have been out due to injury. “We’ve got to get healthy,” Ham said. “… And once you get healthy, guys got to get back into rhythm and we’ve got to find a cohesive unit, a total cohesive rotation that we can go with.
“When you’re dealing with different guys being in and out of the lineup that frequently, it’s damn-near impossible to find a rhythm. That’s just being real. That’s no slight on anybody.”
“It’s a little bit of everything right now,” Anthony Davis admitted. “We’re not executing. That team played harder than us tonight, executed better than us tonight, more physical than us tonight. We got outworked tonight. So it’s a bit of everything right now. If we keep on this trend, it’s not going to be good for us. So it’s kind of obvious that we have to figure it out sooner than later.”
However, the star big man doesn’t excuse their poor displays. “Guys being out is not an excuse. There are no excuses for us. Like coach said (pregame), we have enough in this locker room to win but we just have to go out and compete,” he concluded.
