By Eurohoops team/ [email protected]
Los Angeles Lakers coach Darvin Ham wants to bring the franchise back to winning ways and any player who isn’t 100 percent sure that he wants to be on the team is excluded from his plans.
That’s what Ham said while being interviewed by Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson’s “All The Smoke” podcast. When asked what Lakers fans should expect from the team this season, he answered the following:
“Competing at a high level. We’re going to be together. The most together team always does well, always wins at the end of the day. And accountability. We’re going to be tough. We’re going to be defensive-minded. That’s the side of the ball where you’re going to see the quickest and most drastic improvement and we’re going to share offensively. Again, we want everybody all in on what we’re doing. We don’t want anybody that’s second-guessing being a Laker or ‘Am I in the right place?’ or this, that and the third.”
These last sentences in Ham’s answer were interpreted by some as a potential warning to Russell Westbrook, amid multiple trade rumors. Yet in the same podcast, the new Lakers coach reiterated how eager he is to work with Westbrook.
“I’m thrilled to coach Russ,” Ham said. “They try to dump on Russ and I’m like that’s one of the things that get me excited about this job. He and I’ve had a great rapport since I’ve taken over the job.”