The Los Angeles Lakers made a great hire at head coach by giving long-time assistant Darvin Ham a chance. While Ham still has to prove that he can be a valuable NBA head coach, hiring Ham was much better than the potential alternatives this offseason.
The rest of the coaching staff is starting to shape out in Los Angeles as well. Phil Handy accepted Ham’s invitation to return to the coaching staff and the team also hired four-time all-star Rasheed Wallace, who was previously an assistant at the University of Memphis.
There is still plenty of room on the coaching staff after Ham and the Lakers dismissed David Fizdale, Mike Penberthy and John Lucas III. With Fizdale gone, there is an opening for the lead assistant role on Ham’s coaching staff as it is unlikely that Handy or Wallace are going to fill that void.
Instead, the perfect candidate just became available as he just stepped down from his head coaching duties with another NBA playoff team.
The Los Angeles Lakers should push hard to hire Quin Snyder as an assistant.
Quin Snyder is not someone who Laker fans should have been overly thrilled about as a head coaching candidate. Snyder made the playoffs quite a bit with the Utah Jazz but never made it out of the second round. Hiring a retread like Snyder really would not have made a lot of sense.
However, adding him to the coaching staff in a similar manner as adding Jason Kidd would be great for the Lakers. They would be getting the coaching bump that he undoubtedly brings, especially on the defensive end, without having to trust him to be the guy to run the show in the playoffs.
Snyder recently stepped down from his role as the head coach of the Utah Jazz and Jazz President Danny Ainge even admitted that Snyder could likely coach as early as next year. The only team that has a head coach opening is the Charlotte Hornets and it would be shocking if Snyder left Utah with his eyes on the Hornets’ job.
Perhaps Snyder is more interested in taking a lesser role with the Lakers, raising his stock in the process, before getting a more lucrative coaching job like Kidd did after his one year with the Lakers. It certainly would not be the first time a coach took this path after being a head coach.
Regardless, while there has been a lack of success in the postseason, Snyder’s teams have consistently been solid in the regular season and he has undoubtedly maximized the talent he has gotten on his rosters in the past.
Adding that to the coaching staff, on top of having experience for Ham to fall back on, would be extremely impactful for the Lakers.