LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers have ‘quit’ on head coach Darvin Ham after their latest loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday.
That was the damning verdict of outspoken pundit Skip Bayless, who feels Ham’s time in charge of the franchise could well be coming to an end.
The Lakers now hold a losing record this season and are currently in ninth place in the Western Conference Standings.
Ham guided the Lakers to the Western Conference finals last season and also won the NBA In-Season Tournament this term.
But their worrying run of form could see their place in this year’s play-offs jeopardy and Bayless has not held back on his verdict on the Lakers and their star man, James.
“Darvin Ham is going to get fired, soon,” Bayless tweeted. “I do not believe he should be fired – he did a terrific job last year.
“But LeBron and Lakers have quit on him. They’re so much better than they played the last two shameful nights.
“LeBron just said: ‘On any given night, we can beat any team in the NBA, and on any given night, we can get our ass kicked by any team in the NBA.’
“True. But on way too many nights, the Lakers lose to inferior teams, too often badly. They’re 24-25.”
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Christian Wood fiasco compounds Lakers’ misery
The Lakers’ misery was compounded when Christian Wood reacted to being left out of the starting five, despite the absence of Anthony Davis, by cooking up a storm on social media.
Wood tweeted: ‘LOL’ when the teams were announced but he has since claimed it was an accident and he had meant to quote an unrelated tweet.
But Bayliss has slammed the 28-year-old for showing ‘disrespect’ towards head coach Ham.
“We had the incident before the game with Christian Wood,” Bayliss told Undisputed.
.@RealSkipBayless remains hopeful in the Lakers despite falling below .500: pic.twitter.com/BGM2v0rnVD
— UNDISPUTED (@undisputed) January 31, 2024
“I like Christian Wood as a player but Darvin doesn’t love him. He has been in and out of the line-up, mostly out, and his minutes have been reduced.
“Last night, 30 minutes before the game when the starting line-ups came out, Christian Wood was not in the starting line-up in place of AD, Jaxson Hayes was, so Christian goes to the locker room and tweets ‘LOL’.
“He said after the game it was an accident but how about don’t touch your phone? It came off like a sign of disrespect for Darvin and it is teetering on he is losing the team.”
