The Los Angeles Lakers have struggled immensely since winning the NBA In-Season Tournament and Darvin Ham's seat is officially warm. Shams Charania and Jovan Buha of The Athletic reported that there is a growing disconnect between Ham and the Lakers locker room. As a result, his time with the team could be limited.
Hiring a new head coach during the season is never an easy thing to do and it is even harder when the team in question has title aspirations. If the Lakers are going to fire Ham then the team needs to be sure about the head coach they bring in to replace him.
There are also naturally fewer options available during the season than there would be in the offseason. Alas, the Lakers do still have some compelling candidates to potentially choose from.
5 coaches the Lakers could hire to replace Darvin Ham:
Mark Jackson
Mark Jackson is probably the least exciting name on this list. Jackson hasn't coached since Steve Kerr replaced him as the head coach of the Golden State Warriors despite there being dozens and dozens of job openings in the process. That is typically a bad sign.
Lakers fans would rightfully be worried about the team hiring Jackson and there definitely is no guarantee that it would work. All that being said, fans need to remember who has the most influence on this decision, and how Jackson is connected in that way.
If the Lakers fire Ham it will likely be at the demand of LeBron James and Anthony Davis. If that is the case, the two Klutch Sports clients are definitely going to let their two cents be heard about which head coach they want to bring in. Jackson was previously represented by Klutch Sports and LeBron reportedly has pushed for Jackson to be hired before (with the Cavs).
He may no longer be represented by Klutch but the ties are still there. With the Lakers interviewing him before hiring Ham, there is already some familiarity there.
Jordi Fernandez
Jordi Fernandez is probably the best hire the Los Angeles Lakers could make not just to compete for a title this season but to navigate the post-LeBron era that is right around the corner. There would be some risk in hiring another first-time head coach but there isn't another first-time name on the market with more intrigue than Fernandez.
Fernandez is the current associate head coach of the Sacramento Kings and is lauded in league circles. Fernandez has been touted as the next great head coaching prospect and there is a really good chance that he is a head coach at the start of the 2024-25 season.
Why not make that happen in LA? Fernandez has shown all the signs of being a great head coach, both in the work he has done as an assistant head coach as well as what he did with Team Canada after taking over the job from Nick Nurse.
Fernandez also has ties to LeBron James that are relevant for this potential hire. Fernandez got his start with the Cleveland Cavaliers in a player development role and was on the coaching staff that won the 2016 NBA Championship.
Between that stint and coaching for the Kings, Fernandez served as an assistant on the Denver Nuggets and like everywhere else he coached, received high praise from players and coaches alike.
Hiring a head coach off of another staff does not happen that often, but is possible. The last coach to make this kind of jump was Chris Finch in 2021. Fernandez would be a great candidate to follow in Finch's footsteps.
Kenny Atkinson
This list only has two coaches who are currently assistants on another staff simply because it still is not that common for an assistant to jump ship for a promotion during the season. If there is any other assistant in the league that might make this kind of jump it would be Kenny Atkinson.
Atkinson is currently an assistant head coach for the Golden State Warriors, which is a role he has had since 2021. Atkinson has been in the league for a long time and has coached on various staffs daring back to the 2008 season.
The veteran coach has gotten one head coaching gig in his career with the Brooklyn Nets. Atkinson was hired in 2016 and held that position through the 2019-20 season. Then, because the Nets were silly and listened to Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, Atkinson and the team "mutually decided to part ways" in March of 2020 so the team could eventually hire Steve Nash.
Atkinson's head coaching record is not the greatest but he did elevate the Nets teams that he coached. The 2018-19 Nets had a winning record and made the playoffs despite D'Angelo Russell and Spencer Dinwiddie being the team's two best players. There were even more promising signs the following year, although that season was cursed with Kevin Durant getting injured.
If the Lakers are looking for an experienced coach that can simply quell the storm in Los Angeles then Atkinson may be the guy. Atkinson would not reinvent anything the Lakers are doing but he might be the consistent voice in the locker room that this team needs.
Terry Stotts
Like Jackson, Terry Stotts is not currently part of any NBA coaching staff which might make it easier for the Lakers to hire him if the time comes. There is no guarantee that the team would be able to poach Fernandez or Atkinson, opening the door for someone like Stotts to be hired.
It isn't like Stotts has been out of the league for a long time. The veteran head coach was actually hired as an assistant for the Milwaukee Bucks. Prior to the 2023-24 season, though, Stotts stepped down from his role.
Stotts would provide a similar outlook at Atkinson in the sense that he would bring experience and stability to the locker room. He is by far the most experienced candidate on this list, as he has over a decade of coaching experience in the league.
His last stint (aside from the short-lived assistant job in Milwaukee) was as the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers. Stotts coached the Blazers for nine seasons, making the playoffs in eight of his nine seasons. It is hard to find a midseason head coach candidate who has 67 playoff games on his resume.
Stotts is on the older side and Lakers fans shouldn't expect someone like him to reinvent the wheel in Los Angeles. LeBron would still do his thing as the most vocal and influential player in the huddles, with Stotts being tasked to run a sensible NBA rotation (something Ham cannot do).
Phil Handy
Don't be surprised if the most likely candidate to replace Darvin Ham as Lakers head coach comes from in-house. After all, if the Lakers are unable to hire a strong candidate like Fernandez during the season then it might be best to wait to make a long-term decision.
Let's just say that Fernandez is the next dream hire for the Lakers considering how well he is touted in league circles. If the Lakers hire someone else in-season, that removes the possibility of hiring Fernandez in the summer. To keep that possibility alive, the Lakers may just want to hire an interim coach to replace Ham for the rest of the season.
And if that is the route that the Lakers decide to take then Phil Handy might just be the most likely coach to get the promotion. Handy is extremely well-respected by this Lakers team and there would be no worries about the locker room turning on him in any capacity.
Handy has primarily been a player development coach as an assistant but he is a bright basketball mind that could absolutely make out rotations and do head coaching duties. After all, it should be made easier when LeBron is on the roster with his influence.
Promoting Handy would allow the Lakers to get Ham's ludicrous rotations out of the picture without committing too soon to a long-term replacement. Winning the title with an interim head coach is extremely hard, but if anyone can do it on this Lakers staff it is Handy.