Lakers News: Darvin Ham Speaks Out About Former Boss's Firing
Following a five-game first round defeat to the eighth-seeded Miami Heat, the Milwaukee Bucks fired head coach Mike Budenholzer after a five-season run that included winning the title in 2021.
Budenholzer has a lifetime regular season coach record of 484-317. With the Bucks, he has a 271-120 (.693) record from 2018-2023. He coached the team to a 58-24 record this season, the top overall record in the league.
Of the coaches who have led their team to a title across since 2015, only the one facing off against your Los Angeles Lakers, the Golden State Warriors' Steve Kerr, remains with that same championship-winning club. Toronto Raptors head coach Nick Nurse was also fired earlier this summer.
LA head coach Darvin Ham worked under Budenholzer from 2013-18 with the Atlanta Hawks, and then followed him to Milwaukee, where Ham worked from 2018-22 before getting his first head gig with Los Angeles.
Ham led LA to a 43-39 record and the West's seventh seed in his first season with the franchise. The Lakers are still alive in the postseason so far, having vanquished their conference's second seeded, the Memphis Grizzlies, in a six-game first round matchup. LA is now 1-1 against the Warriors in their ongoing Conference Semifinals series.
"Obviously it's unfortunate," Ham said of the Budenholzer firing. "Having won a championship with him, and just being with him for nine years, from Day 1 of him being a head coach [Budenholzer had previously been a loyal assistant under Gregg Popovich with the San Antonio Spurs for decades], him allowing myself and others, [now-Atlanta Hawks head coach] Quinn [Snyder], [now-Grizzlies head coach] Taylor [Jenkins], Kenny [Atkinson, an assistant with the Warriors], who's across the hall, to go on that initial ride with him, and all of the growth and everything we experienced together, and also his ability in teaching and allowing guys to be themselves on his staff, and his players, and always being a pro-player coach, the communication, the things I learned from him... he's more than a friend to me, he's a brother. I love him."
"I wish him well at his next endeavor, and outside the realm of sport and basketball, whatever, he and I are family for life. I love him, it's an unfortunate situation, but [knowing] Bud like I do, he'll bounce back and be great," Ham continued.
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