Hoops Tonight - Jimmy Butler wills the Heat to game 7, Lakers hire Darvin Ham

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In Michigan one eight seven seven eight Hope and Why or text hope and Why to four six seven three six nine in New York. In Tennessee redline dial one eight hundred eight eight nine nine seven eight nine in Tennessee. Visit www one dot one eight hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. All right, Welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Fandel here at the volume Happy Friday, everybody. I am incredibly frustrated with the Boston Celtics tonight. I have not actively rooted for a team at all in this

playoff run. Obviously, They've had teams that I've had predictions about and teams that I've hoped would win for the sake of my predictions. But tonight was the first time I was actually rooting for a team to win. I was rooting for Boston to win because if they won, I would have gotten Saturday and Sunday off this weekend, which would have been my first weekend off and over a month, and I was very much looking forward to that they had enough talent to do so it didn't

go that way. I can't sit up here though, and just and say, oh, Boston didn't play hard, or you know that they let Miami get lucky. No, no no, no, Miami came in here tonight and played an incredible basketball game on both ends of the floor. Every single one of their players showed up in some capacity except for maybe bam At a bio on the offensive end the floor,

which is a whole other story. And they came in here and they beat a team that has more talent than them on both ends of the floor, and I have to give them a resounding round of applause for that. I always talk about how there's a range of outcomes

with a basketball team. It's the same thing for players to like, you're it's kind of like the floor ceiling conversation, right, like your your best punch versus your worst punch, And you know, Boston's best punch is not as good as excuse me, Miami's best punch is not as good as Boston's best punch, and Boston's worst punch might be better than Miami's worst punch, depending on who you ask. I

tend to think that Boston's floor is pretty low. But if you catch them on the right night, and Miami throws their best punch and Boston throws a mediocre punch, they can win a huge road game in Boston to extend this series to seven. We're gonna break this game down in its entirety. We're gonna talk to Jimmy Butler. I want to talk about the rest of the Miami role players. We're gonna talk about Boston and some of their late game execute you should and some of the

issues I had with their process throughout this game. We're gonna talk to some Jayson Tatum because I thought he was outplayed by Jimmy Butler and three of the six games of the series, which is something that you can't allow to happen if you're Jayson Tatum and you put yourself in that superstar class. And then we're gonna talk a little bit about Game seven and what I expect to see there before we get started. If you guys could take the time to like this video, I would

sincerely appreciate that it helps us a lot. Also, if you could subscribe to the volumes YouTube channels so you don't miss any more of our videos. Also, if you can't finish this entire video for whatever reason and you can't spend more time on YouTube for whatever reason, check

out our podcast feed. It's called Lakers Tonight. We're we're doing some rebranding after the season, but that's where you can find are the recording of these shows as soon as we finish, usually about an hour after we finished recording. And then, last but not least, follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason LT. We're gonna be doing a bunch of different video stuff as we go into the finals. That's where you're gonna go to see that sort of your content. But let's start with Jimmy Butler. So we're

gonna get to everything. We're gonna get to the late game stuff um here in a little bit. But Jimmy Butler was the hero of the night, and I think he deserves to be up first. A truly bizarre performance on a bunch of different levels. First of all, and I tweeted this out and I sincerely mean it. This was an all time great playoff performance from Jimmy Butler,

Like pantheon level stuff. If you saw this from a Lebron, if you saw this from a Kobe or Kevin Durant or Steph Curry, we would be making the same case. And I don't believe in moving goalposts for players. For Jimmy Butler, this is that type of performance. Forty seven points, nine rebounds, eight assists from three efficient everywhere else on the floor, got to the foul line. He was un

freaking believable on defense. I'm gonna spend some time talking about that here in just a minute, because I think it's deeply impactful in a way that a lot of people don't see on first watch. You almost have to go back on the tape to see the different ways that he can be so disruptive to another team in

the way they run their offense. The thing that I wanted to start with that's so interesting about this is just the dynamic Jimmy Butler in the previous three games average nine points and two assists, two assists in nine points from the field from three. Now, is there knee stuff involved, Yes, but that same knee stuff applied today, Jimmy Butler said himself after the game. My knees banged up. But everybody's banged up, and I'm not going to make

the excuses, and that's the truth. Marcus Smart is banged up. You know, Jason TAM's dealing with a shoulder dinger. You know Jalen Brown in the first half tonight would need a knee with somebody. If you've ever had that feeling that lingers for a while, everyone's banged up. But for whatever reason, the Jimmy Butler that we saw in the previous three games was replaced by a guy who was capable of putting out an absolute pantheon all time great NBA playoff performance, and it stole a game on the

road to extend this series to seven. For those of you have been listening to my show for a while, UM, I always talk about the problem with tricking off playoff games. There's certain stuff that's out of your control to some extent, right like Boston, what what happened to them in Game three of this series not trying when they came out the gate. It's very different than some of the issues

they've had earlier in this playoff run. They've lost games because of execution, But execution, in large part comes down to your decision makers, that's not something that you know, you can focus really hard to take care of in the sense that like that's kind of in their nature as basketball players. They're finicky when they make decisions. Some nights they are dialed in and they're doing it the

right way, and some nights they're not right. But when you trick off a game the way you did in Game three, which was very much in your control, when you came out in the first quarter and you weren't giving effort and you were being or or even just the third quarter of Game one, when you were just persistently turning the ball over. Jayson Tatum at six turnovers just in that quarter, that's that's I don't care how much of a facilitating weakness you have. Six turnovers in

a quarter is inexcusable. When you trick off games early in the series, you run the risk of an outlier performance like Jimmy Butler going for forty seven, nine and eight, Jimmy Butler transforming into prime Lebron James. You run the risk of that happening when you have a chance to close that a series in Game six. And that's why it's so important to feel that urgency early in series.

Even when you're going against a team that you know, you have an advantage against a talent advantage because in a large sample size, talent wins, but in a short sample size, variants wins. In a short sample size, you can go cold. In a short sample size, you can make a handful of mistakes at the end of a game and it can cost you. In a short sample size, a player that averaged nine points in his previous three

games can go for forty seven or max strus. A player who couldn't hit a shot in the last few games can get hot and make a bunch of key three pointers in this game. That is the problem with tricking off games. You run into this type of predicament. But Jimmy Butler, you know it's not. It's an outlier compared to the way he played in this series, and it's an outlier compared to his regular averages in the playoffs. Like Jimmy Butler's typically about a twenty point per game

guy in the playoffs. That's just what he is. But we have seen tons of examples over the years of Jimmy Butler flashing this type of upside in the playoffs. You absolutely knew that was a risk. Is it shocking, Yes, this might be his best playoff game ever, But you always knew there was a risk with Jimmy Butler. He dropped forty in the finals twice against Lebron. That's always been one of the potential outcomes when you're playing against

Jimmy Butler. Really quickly, I wanted to talk about his defense because I think, you know, I had people asking like why don't in in my Twitter mentions like why don't people backdoor cut? More like why is it that Jimmy can recover so easily? Why does it always feel like he's in the right spot. It's instincts, you know.

There's a lot of different things that go into defense, right Like your physical tools play a certain role, your commitment physically getting into shape in terms of your conditioning, also just your willingness to do the work. There's focus right up here. A huge part of defense is that I remember one time when I was when I was playing basketball in college. One time I botched a coverage in a key late game situation, uh, chasing a shooter over the top of the screen. I was supposed to

chase him over the top. I went underneath the screen, and I got pulled from the game and I had to sit crunch time because my coach didn't trust me to finish that coverage for the rest of that game. That's part there's so many different elements that going to defense. That's one that constantly gets overlooked. Your your focus on

the game plan, your ability to execute that. And Jimmy Butler, his instincts, his ability to focus, his ability to do those things in conjunction with his physical tools, in conjunction with his conditioning, and his commitment amounts to a guy that can be downright disruptive all night. Tonight. I thought he did a really nice job of in the passing lanes, baiting players into thinking he wasn't a threat. That's with body language. That's like it's like you think of a

no look pass, it's like a no look steel. Jimmy Butler being in a position where his he tricks you with his body language into thinking he's in the passing lane but not paying attention, or that he's a step too far away to get to a pass. But then as soon as you start your passing motion, he's shooting like a dart into that lane. That's all instincts and focus. But that instinct part is one of the another part of defense that frequently gets clossed over. Some of this

this is not coachable. This is something that you can't train someone into doing. Some people just have a nose for the ball. We talked about this a lot last night when I was talking about Clay Thompson and I was talking about Kavan Looney. Great rebounders in NBA history have a knack for just knowing where the ball is going to come off the rim. Great shooters in NBA history just have a knack for where to relocate to give themselves their best opportunity to get an open shot.

And great defensive players like Jimmy Butler have a knack for understanding how plays develop. They understand when the backdoor guts come, cuts coming, they understand when the swing passes coming. They can see plays develop before they happen, which allows them to be in the right spot to blow plays up.

Just an unbelievable, masterful two way performance. When you factor in the degree of difficulty on some of the shots he was making, When you factor in the timeliness of the shots and the impact they had on the game. When you factor in the quality of his supporting cast, he does not have as much talent on his team as Boston does. And when you factor in the stakes down three two on the road in Boston, that is

an all time great playoff performance from Jimmy Butler. So tip of the cap to him if he does If he does it one more time and closes his out in game seven, that's one of the all time great NBA accomplishments for Superstar to beat a team again, like everything is more complicated than it looks on the surface, but Johannest couldn't push his team over the top. If Jimmy could pull that off, that'd be a remarkable accomplishment because I thought that Bucks team was better than this

Miami Heat team depending on who you ask. Obviously, I wanted to talk about some of the Miami role players because I thought shot making was a very important part of tonight's game. Now, what is the difference between shooting and shot making? Shooting to me has to do with your ability to finish plays that are created by people elsewhere on the floor. Right, So like if Jimmy Butler drives and kicks to Maxter's wide open in the corner with seven seconds on the shot clock. That's the shooting

opportunity right. To me, shot making is off script. To me, shot making is bailing out possessions, making tough shots over contests, the shots that are on the margins of these half court sets that are not great opera tunities. You know, over the course of a game, you expect your offense to generate a certain amount of open shots, and then you expect, you know, you have to have possessions that go south right, And when those possessions go south, one

of two things can happen. You can either have guys bail you out with shot making, or you can miss and run back the other way. On defense in Miami's I think Miami's biggest weakness in their roster construction is shot making because most of the guys on this roster require being open to make shots. Guys like Kyle Lowry and Tyler Harrow and Duncan Robinson and Max trus They are guys that typically succeed only when the offense generates

them open looks. Maybe the best guy that bunches a guy like Tyler Harrow, but again, he likes to come off terrible handoffs and high ball screens to get to a spot where he can elevate when he has when he has an opening to operate in. Jimmy Butler really is the only guy on the roster who's a great shot maker, a guy who can rescue possessions. But I thought Max Strusce and Kyle Lowry both helps Jimmy Butler tonight with massive shot making an end of shot clock situations.

Max Strews made a huge three on the right wing in the late third quarter that kind of stemmed the tide of a Boston run. And then I thought Kyle Lowry hit one of the biggest shots of the night. After Derek White makes a three in the right corner to give Boston lead. Jimmy Butler and Kyle Lowry runs some Jankee little dribble handoff sequence on the right on

the right wing. It's defended really well. Marcus Smart kind of anticipates it and gets a late close out on Kyle Lowry and he just sticks it like a twenty six ft contested three. That's not just shooting within the flow of your offense. That's shot making, that's creating something

out of nothing. And I think you need a certain amount of that, especially in the playoffs because of the fact that the easy opportunities are few and far between, and having guys that can rescue possessions brings a ton of value. So Miami's role players I thought all came through in big in a big way tonight. The only guy again and that I could be critical of his bam at a bio who for whatever reason just seems content to basically UHCT just basically be Kevon Looni for

this team. I've never seen anything like it for a guy who dictates a max contract with his impact on both ends of the four typically truly bizarre on that front. But a massive performance from the Miami role players, a massive performance from Jimmy Butler, and I am working Sunday night and we're gonna we're gonna be covering Game seven.

Immediately after the final buzzer on Sunday Night, I wanted to talk about Boston for a minute because their execution has been my biggest personal issue with them in this postseason run. Again, I talked about them being the Jackal and high team of this playoff run, and what that means to me is they have the lowest floor in the highest ceiling or or the biggest gap between their ceiling and their floor, but it's not typically related to effort.

Game three was the outlier. That game was the first time I can remember in this playoff run where they really came out flat and arrogant, underestimating their opponent. Which again, if that doesn't happen, this series would already be over. They would have won this series in five games had they not done that. And they damn near won that game anyway. They had it within one, within a couple of minutes left. But more often than not, their issue

has not been effort, it's been execution. We talked about their decision making. Boston's defense is so good in the half court, but when you gift Miami twenty two points off of turnovers, that's that's a fifth of their production in this game. That's a huge swing. You're gifting them a fifth of their offense by gifting them transition opportunities.

That's all comes down to execution. There was a play early in the game it's this is this This to me encapsulates the Boston decision making issue that they have from their perimeter initiators. It's nineteen to nine Miami has a big early lead. There's a nice little betting opportunity at they You could have gotten Miami at like plus to win the first quarter. Thought about it, but I

ended up passing on it. It's nineteen to nine, Miami's on a run, typical start to a close out game, right and Jalen Brown comes down after after Boston or Miami just scored to put them up ten, and your offense is not functioning. He came down the right wing and just shot a pull up three off the dribble that was moderately contested by Jimmy Butler early in the shot clock, and it went in. That's the wild part.

They went in brought the game to nineteen twelve. But I'm sitting there watching on the couch and I'm like, why did he take that shot? Your offense is struggling. You desperately need to get something easy to get you going. Miami's on a run. You need this is that Those are the moments when you have to rein it in with your decision making, not continue to fan out wildly. And it was a bizarre shot again, he made it, but to me, it's a great indicator of bad process.

The Boston Celtics laugh a floor general. I know the Celtics fans think Marcus Smart as the floor general. He is not. He had a possession in the fourth quarter where he just dribbled the ball around on the perimeter literally until the shot clock ran out, and jacked up at three at the end of the buzzer and hit the barely graze the front of the rent. Didn't even throw a pass on the possession. Like, Marcus Smart is

not a four general. But because nobody on the team has that instinct, they walked down the floor nine and there's nobody to say, give me the ball, Let's run our sets, let's get a good shot, let's start executing so we can get this game back under control. It's something actively missing from the roster. It's and Jalen Brown draws a foul, goes to the line. This is literally how the next six possessions for both teams went Daylen Brown misses both free throws, which again it's unfortunate. It

happens though, like you can't. I mean, if you're three point a free throw shooter, is a good chance you'll miss one. Attitude, which means there's always a possibility that you'll miss both. They come right down on defense, and Jimmy Butler has been persistently trying to attack Derek White because he's small. So Boston has been doing what Golden State in Miami and a lot of these guys have been doing to avoid switches. They're doing a hedge and recover.

We've broke that down several times over the course of the last couple of nights. Essentially, when the when the when the screen is coming, whoever it is that you do not want switching onto the offensive player has to hard hedge because if you hard headed, then Jimmy Butler has to dribble around you, and if you has to dribble around you, he bye bye. By the workings of the coverage, should have to retreat because if you actually said a good hard head, he has to go outside

of you to turn around. And so if you do it right, it forces you to go around in a bias time for Jalen Brown to get underneath the screen and recover. All right, I think it was actually Marcus Smart guarding Jimmy Butler on this play. But what happens They run up to set the screen and Derek White doesn't hedge or goes to hedge, but he's way too late, and as a result, Jimmy Butler goes flying downhill and

gets an and one over Al Horford. So it's a botched defensive coverage again off of a free throw situation. Now he missed it, but it's a free throw situation. You should have your defense set. That is poor execution. That is Jimmy Butler capitalizing on you not being sharp. Boston goes down. Now it's not one or one, o, two to ninety nine. Boston goes down. Tatum is posting on the right and p J. Tucker is guarding Derek White, and p J Tucker just simply goes to double Jayson Tatum.

Jayson Tatum rips through to the baseline, gets cut off and spins back and somehow just was completely unaware of the fact that p JA Tucker was coming. Mind you, before, before Jayson Tatum even started the move, p J Tucker was already coming with the double. He had to have known that was coming. He spun back into p J Tucker and immediate they turned it over. Jayson Tatum turned the ball over seven times in this game. Then Boston. Okay, so he turned it over. That sucks. Miami's out executed

you three possessions in a row. It's really unfortunate. They got three point lead. But sit down and get a stop. No, they commit a foul as we're working down in transition, a pointless foul in the penalty that accomplished nothing for your defense, and just set Miami to the line. They make both free throws. Now it's a five point game. Then you go down and you execute well, and you get a wide open three for Al Horford on the

left wing, wide open, and he missed it. That happens, right, But that's the only possession where you executed properly to get a good look down the stretch. And after he missed it, both Jayson Tatum and Derek White and Marcus Smart I'll just started hacking like crazy at p J. Tucker may or may not have gotten all ball. I think on the one that they called the foul was all ball, but the one before that was a foul.

And typically when ref sea guys just hacking like crazy on a rebound like that, they're gonna call a foul. And guess what happened. They called a foul and peach At Tucker got to go down to shoot two free throws and then the game's over. That games right there for the taking, and methodically down the stretch. You made mistakes while the other team executed. That is the biggest

weakness of this Boston team. They are a bad execution team. Now, I've had people say, you know, Jason, if if Boston is the most talented team on both ends, if they can't execute, doesn't that mean they're a bad team. If they're unfocused, doesn't I mean they're a bad team. If they're too volatile and they're spread between their good side and their bad side, doesn't mean that means they're a bad team. Well, I think bad's not the right word,

but you're that's that's a very fair point. If a team is persistently showing you they are inconsistent, then you can't evaluate them by their upside. You have to evaluate them by kind of the average between the two. And so here's the thing. If Miami goes home in Game seven and wins, Miami is the better team, not in talent, but they're the better basketball team. Because the best basketball teams in the world do execute on both ends of the floor. The best basketball teams in the world, do

try hard every single night. The best basketball teams in the world are sharp. In Boston is not. That's why, even though I said Boston is the most talented team in the league when the series was tied, it to what did I tell you, guys that are not out of the woods yet, Because they're just as likely to blow this as they are to win it. When I was making my prediction about the Golden State Boston Finals, potentially, when I was breaking that down last night, what did

I say. I'm siding with Golden State because I trust them more to execute their game plan and to reach their individual ceilings and their team ceiling that Boston has tried. Look, it's a it's an old, you know, little life philosophy. When someone tries again and again to show you who they are, believe them. Boston has shown us their untrustworthy, so it doesn't make sense to trust them. I mean, looking forward to Game seven, Boston should win. Right, They're

more talented on both ends of the floor. That's what happened in Milwaukee, Right. They toasted off Game five at home, and then they went into Milwaukee, and even when they were trailing a little bit late, they just put it all together finally and hit their ceiling and beat that Milwaukee team. That's very possible in Game seven. My thing is, like, I'm a big believer in the basketball gods. I'm a big believer in basketball karma. I don't know what you want to call it, but like, this has to burn

them eventually. This volatility has to eventually burn this team, and I it might be in Game seven against Miami, or it might be against Golden State in the finals. We'll see, But I just I can't imagine a team that is this volatile hole and that executes this poorly hoisting up the Larry O'Brien Trophy. I would be shocked. At this point. Obviously, it's still a possibility, and my predictions have been all over the place in this playoff run, as as as many incensed Warriors fans have been uh

kind enough to let me know. But I mean, I don't know what to expect from this Boston team. Predicting with them feels like a fool's Errand the last thing I want to talk about tonight was Jayson Tatum. Again. He had thirty. He was efficient, I thought, I think he only took like twelve shots did a really nice job kind of navigating as a decoy throughout the night,

but too many mistakes. Seven turnovers, and when Miami scores twenty two points off of turnovers in the game, again, your feed your spoon, feeding them offense when they're a team that struggles to score in the half court, I can't happen. Now. Jayson Tatum is a player that I look at, as you know, in that tier of superstars. Right. We've talked about that a lot in this playoff run. But here's the thing. Jimmy Butler's not guy. And he's outplayed you three times in this series, and all three

times it led to a win. So at a certain point, like, if you're Jason Tatum and you are that superstar, you have to come through. I I I wish I could say that I feel confident that he's gonna go into Miami and Game seven and close the deal. But I just don't know. He should have closed the deal tonight. I mean, he's he's seen the traps often in this series. He's seen Tatum playing passing lanes NonStop in this series.

Excuse me, Jimmy Butler playing passing lanes non stopping this series he knew tonight and still turn the ball over seven times. It was a bizarre performance. So lots on steak at steak for him to going into Game seven to close this deal. That's the nature of the expectations that come with being a superstar. Gun to my head, if I had to pick a team in Game seven, I'd pick Boston, but I damn sure don't feel good about it, And if anything, I'll be rooting for Miami

because because us, that took away my weekend. Alright, So the Lakers have a new head coach. I wanted to take a couple of minutes tonight to break down why I think Darvin Ham is such a good hire. Talk a little bit about the Lakers front office and what's next for them, as well as just what I expect moving forward as they're rounding out the rest of the coaching staff. So, um, you know, they narrowed it down to Terry Stott's and Kenny Atkinson and Darvin Ham. There

were some rumors out there about dr revers. We'll get to those in just a few minutes. The Kenny Atkinson and Terry Stott's examples, I didn't think they were bad options necessarily, I think both of them have a little bit more experience in terms of offensive organization as head coaches, and they've demonstrated in their personal experience better offensive organization.

And I do think offensive organization is vitally important to this Lakers team to a certain extent, But I think there's something far more important to this Lakers team, and that's restoring their identity that they built in the season, which was as a defensive team. And as you're seeing routinely in this playoff run, it is the teams that hang their hat on the defensive end that end up having the most success, especially as you get later into

the postseason. So, first of all, schematically, I think it's a seamless transition for Darvin Hamd with what he brings over from Milwaukee to the Lakers. The Bucks ran a twin rim protector system. They used Janice and Brook Lopez at the same time, typically Janice navigating the screen and roll coverage because he's more mobile, and brook Lopez on the back line as a rim protector. But there was some interchangeability there, although Brooke wasn't as good in his

drop coverage as Janice was. As you can see, Janice is capable of some things and drop coverage that are you know, no other NBA player can do, like his block that he had on DeAndre and in the NBA Finals last year. But what I like about that coverage is I think it's a good example of a coverage that can help the Lakers eat innings in the regular season. I prefer switching defenses. I've laid this out in detail on the show. I think it bates teams into isolation basketball.

I think gets easier on teams physically because they don't have to fight through screens as often. It takes the strain of defense off of the physical the physical elements, and puts it on your brain. As long as you're focused and paying attention and you're communicating with your teammates, you can run a successful switching scheme without having to battle through a ton of physicality. Right. But a couple

of things. First of all, teams don't like to switch too much in the regular season because those physical mismatches lead to wear and tear. Also, it requires a certain type of personnel. You can't run a successful switching scheme unless you have at least three or four really solid perimeter defenders on the team. You can do what you've seen Miami and Golden State do, where you have your weaker defenders do hedges and like basically do a hedge

and recover to avoid a switch. But you can't do that when everyone on the floor is a defensive liability. You need a certain amount of overall defensive talent on the roster in order to make that work. A lot is up in the air in that department for the Lakers. We don't know what they're going to be able to accomplish this offseason. They don't have a ton of options, so much comes down to what they can get back

for us. So much comes down to what they can find in the veteran minimum market, changing their priorities from the types of players that they targeted last offseason, which obviously did not pan out. If I hope that they can target enough bigger, stronger perimeter players that defend well that they can do more switching, but chances are that they won't be able to do that as much, and they'll have to be a team like Milwaukee that relies heavily on drop coverage as they go into the postseason.

So because of that, I like the idea of taking Darvin Ham's twin rim protector scheme that he helped run with Milwaukee and bringing that into Lebron James and Anthony Davis plus Lebron James Anthony Davis for all of their issues with being engaged and carrying on the defensive end when they care, they're actually a better defensive duo than Brook Lopezigiana. So you could see a version of that working extremely well. So I love the the schematic train

transition coming from Milwaukee to l A for Darvin. But that buying that, that trying on defense part that I just hinted at is the second and is the second big element here and arguably the most important, you know, for everything that we can talk about with the Lakers. Over the course of the last two seasons, there were two consistent issues. One, Lebron James and Anthony Davis weren't on the floor together enough. Over the course the last two seasons. It just was an incessant line of injury

to one guy or the other. It was incredibly discouraging and it never seemed like they could get a consistent stretch of games where the two guys were playing. But then last season, Anthony Davis had a bad defensive season

by his standards in terms of his overall engagement. And then this last season, Lebron James and Anthony Davis had bad defensive seasons by their personal standards, And I think a lot of that has to do with just their egos and them having a hard time buying into these established, kind of uh traditional types of coaches, These guys that have been around the league for the long time, the guys that aren't former players, that don't really resonate with

them when they're trying to look at them in the face and be like, hey man, I need you to play some defense. I saw Lebron James tune out Frank Vogel. I saw Anthony Davis tune out Frank Vogel. I saw Lebron James tune out David Blatt back in two thousand sixteen.

It's been a pretty consistent theme for those guys. But I don't think it's a coincidence that you're seeing a lot of former players, guys like Jason Kidd, guys like Tylu, guys like you Udoka, Guys that were not just former NBA players but former remedia players that played relatively recently in the league in a way that they can, you know, have some common ground with these players, and also players that had a persona that was tough players that they're

they're The impact that they had on the locker room as players was infectious toughness. I think that specific archetype archetype of coach is having a lot of success these days, resonating with some of the egotistical players around the league. Like I said before, you guys have seen Boston under Email Udoka go from a team that was notoriously soft to a team that is remarkably tough, and it's won some huge playoff games with their back against the wall

in this playoff run. Right. You've seen Tyler and all the success he's had with the Clippers. He saw Jason Kidd finally get the Dallas Mavericks to play defense. Luk at Donchez, for all of his issues on defense, had a better season on that end than he's had in years past. That's the example of a a tough former player having an impact on their on big egos in the locker room and getting them to commit to that

end of the floor. So I love the example that Darvin Ham kind of fits into and the way that I believe he will resonate with Lebron James and Anthony Davis, getting them not just on the floor, which is out of his control, but dialed in and bought in when they are on the floor, which is arguably the most important detail and the last, but not least tonight. You know, I've been incredibly critical of the Lakers front office in ownership group over the course of the last couple of years,

and for good reason. I don't need to get into the details again, but they have burnt so many bridges for me as a as as someone who covered the franchise over the course of the last couple of years. I don't trust them at all, and all that criticism that I levity on them, I believe was fair and criticism is an important part of this job. But I also believe fairness is an important part of this job. If I'm gonna be critical of you, it's it's incomming

on me to also call out your successes. You know, I don't agree with everything they did during this coaching search. I didn't believe it was necessary to continue to consult with, you know, play coaches and personalities that aren't involved in the NBA anymore, guys like Magic Johnson, guys like Phil Jackson. I disagreed with that approach personally, but in terms of

the candidates they interviewed, the things that they prioritized. I loved their list of finalists, and then they picked the guy that I liked the most, the guy that I thought was best equipped for this job. So, you know, for a team that in an ownership group, in a front office that has had a pretty ugly history, I gotta tip the cap to him. This time they did. They did what I believe was a very a very procedural, smart,

patient and you know, properly motivated coaching search. So hats off to them, you know, but this is the thing, as is always the case, you know, the best indicator of future performances past performance, and I'm worried about the

future steps after this point. Now we have to round out the coaching staff with qualified candidates that compliment Darvin Hamm's uh persona, Right, it'd be great to have a guy who's specialist, who's a specialist in offensive organization, spacing concepts, things that I believe are vitally important in the playoff run. And then they have to round out the roster. You've got to give Darvin Ham the tools necessary to succeed.

One of the things that I'm personally worried about for Darvin Ham is that this team is so poorly run that he's gonna end up being the next scapegoat for issues that are brought on by Rob Polinka and Jeanie Buss. I sincerely hope that's not the case. This is the first step in the right direction. They've got a lot more to do, but I'm very excited for Darvin Ham. This was the this is the first step in restoring the Lakers to where they were in But anyway, that's

all I have for tonight, guys. I sincerely appreciate your support. As always, Again, if you guys could take the time to like this video, I would sincerely appreciate that it helps us a lot. If you could subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel, follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason Lts, you guys can see my video content and then subscribe to our podcast feeds that are under Lakers. Tonight, we

will be going live. I actually I don't think we're going live because I believe my producer is still out of town. So we're gonna be doing a video reaction just like this after Game seven on Sunday night, and I'll see you guys then