Bucks' Doc Rivers: Lakers Firing Darvin Ham 'Makes No Sense' After In-Season Title

Milwaukee Bucks head coach Doc Rivers says it "literally makes no sense" that the Los Angeles Lakers would fire Darvin Ham after a Western Conference Finals appearance and in-season tournament victory in his final two seasons as head coach.

The Bucks hired Ham as a lead assistant coach the month after his May firing by the Lakers.

"It's been great," Rivers said about Ham's hiring (5:00 mark of the video below.) "First of all, he's been here even longer than me. He knows things that I didn't know. He has relationships with the players, another guy they can trust. Trust is so important for players.

"And more importantly he deserves it. I'm not going to get into the whole thing that happened there, but he took a team to a Western Finals, and then the following year, he won the in-season tournament, which they say we should have a lot of value on, and then they release him. It literally makes no sense, but it happens. It happens to all of us. It's part of what we do. But Darvin Ham's a coach, he should be on the sidelines, and I wanted him next to me."

Ham previously worked as an assistant in Milwaukee from 2018 to 2022 before his two-year tenure as head coach in Los Angeles.

He finished out his Lakers tenure with a 90-74 record in the regular season and a 9-12 mark in the playoffs.

The Lakers won just a single game in their last two playoff series under Ham. After being swept by the Denver Nuggets in the conference finals, the Lakers faced the Nuggets once more this spring only to be eliminated from the first round in five games.

That lack of playoff success with LeBron James and Anthony Davis on the roster was enough to send Ham packing despite the team claiming the inaugural NBA In-Season Tournament Championship months prior.

The Lakers beat the Phoenix Suns, Memphis Grizzlies, Portland Trail Blazers and Utah Jazz in the group stage, then topped the Phoenix Suns and New Orleans Pelicans in the knockout rounds, in order to reach the in-season championship game with an undefeated tournament record. There Davis and James combined to defeat the similarly-unbeaten Indiana Pacers for the victory.

The win came with $500,000 prizes for winning coaches and players and seemingly added competitiveness into early regular-season games, as was visible in the buzzer beater that earned the Lakers their semifinal spot over the Suns and the increased viewership numbers surrounding the in-tournament games.

But despite the NBA's push to have its players, coaches and fans take the in-season tournament seriously, the title wasn't enough to save Ham's job without postseason success— and it sounds like Rivers isn't happy about Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka setting that standard.

Rivers is heading into his first full season as the Bucks' leader following his midseason hiring as a replacement for first-year head coach Adrian Griffin, who was fired 43 games into the 2023-24 season. While dealing with injuries to Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard, the Bucks suffered a disappointing first-round exit during Rivers' first postseason in Milwaukee.

The Bucks will now hope to make a deeper playoff run next spring with Ham and Rivers together on the sideline for the first time in Milwaukee.