The Los Angeles Lakers are over halfway through the 2022-23 season and there is a mountain to climb. Through 45 games, the Lakers have a 20-25 record and are in 13th in the Western Conference. To make matters worse, the Lakers have had the 10th easiest strength of schedule thus far and are still struggling.
Los Angeles is actually worse off at this point in the 2022-23 season than they were last season. Through 45 games, the Lakers were 22-23 and were four games under .500 at the All-Star Break. If the collapse last year was bad then this year could be even worse.
The 2022-23 season has proven that the grass is not always greener on the other side when it comes to NBA head coaches. Despite winning an NBA Championship less than two calendar years earlier (and coaching his tail off in the 2020 playoffs), the Lakers made Frank Vogel the scapegoat for the team’s lack of success.
Just as we predicted here at Lake Show Life time and time again, Vogel was not the problem and things have been just as bad (if not worse) this season. Not only do the same issues exist, but Darvin Ham no longer has the same shine with the fanbase that he had earlier in the season.
Frank Vogel is the biggest winner of this Los Angeles Lakers season.
Darvin Ham has done some good things for the Lakers this season but his late-game management has been a disaster. Whether it be the lineups that the Lakers trot out in key spots or Ham’s insistence to never call a time-out, Los Angeles has left a lot of games on the table.
This is not the most uncommon thing in the world for a rookie head coach to experience. However, this is not a team that is growing into something over the next few years. This is a team that was supposed to be a title contender and cannot afford for a rookie coach to learn on the job and lose games.
Which is why it was so strange to fire Vogel after one bad season. Vogel has the experience and with a better roster this year, probably could have turned in a better record than Ham has for the Lakers thus far this season.
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Unfortunately, Los Angeles cannot go back in time and decide to give Vogel another year on the job. Fans just have to hope that Ham can figure it out sooner rather than later or the team will have to undergo yet another coaching change.