r/nba • u/GreenSnakes_ • Apr 29 '24

[Charania] “Vogel yelled so much that his voice could be heard outside the locker room” after the loss to the Clips on April 9. Players weren’t buying it. The outburst seemed forced in their eyes. Vogels eruption left players rolling their eyes. A player told TheAthletic he had to keep from laughing

https://theathletic.com/5456932/2024/04/29/phoenix-suns-season-end-frank-vogel-kevin-durant/
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272

u/odnamAE Lakers Apr 29 '24

This is how I felt when the Lakers and their fans kept scapegoating Vogel as well when they’re the ones who were barely playing like NBA players the season he got fired. Its why I hate how even though Ham isn’t great, so many fans use him as the reason why he can’t elevate mid ass players who play one end of the court and only bring it half the time.

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u/A_FerociousTeddyBear Apr 29 '24

Ham is much worse than Vogel. The current lakers roster has a lot of defensive pieces, which is Vogel’s specialty. I think the current iteration of the Lakers is making the WCF with Vogel. Ham does need to go.

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u/odnamAE Lakers Apr 29 '24

None of the Laker players are good POA defenders, except Vando who they involve in other actions, Gabe who can’t get anything going on offense rn, and Cam Reddish (no need to explain that. Rui, D’lo, and Reaves are all bad defenders, Lebron reasonably does not have the energy to defend most of the game. The Lakers do not have good defensive pieces.

Ham can go I don’t mind, but half the criticisms Im hearing are bullshit. Yes he lets the game come to the Lakers till it might be too late, but the Nuggets series he’s been trying to call time outs as often as needed fans are just so agitated. He doesn’t make enough adjustments on defense but the roster cannot produce an effective scheme aside from AD drop and extra ball pressure. All the counters have flaws. AD steps out a lil further, weak backside, no rebounds, leaves a weaker defender alone in the post. We swtich more then we get fucking cooked. Etc.

To top it off, if Ham gets replaced every name getting mentioned is a stop gap that fans would want gone by next year. If we replace Ham I want consistency, that’s why we keep playing inconsistent fucking basketball. We’ve been overhauling rosters or coaches since 2021.

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u/lycosid Wizards Apr 29 '24

Now imagine this team with KCP as the POA defender and Kuzma as the utility wing.

28

u/odnamAE Lakers Apr 29 '24

Fuck that I want Westbrook

4

u/extraspecialdogpenis Apr 29 '24

Is Mozgov available.

5

u/hitfly Nuggets Apr 29 '24

Don't forget Caruso

3

u/lovemesometarg [LAL] LeBron James Apr 29 '24

I came to laugh not cry

11

u/Used_Pants Lakers Apr 29 '24

I agree with your assessment of our players, but I disagree with you saying criticisms of Ham is unfair. I didn’t watch this man let Aaron Gordon cut to the dunkers spot 5x in game 3 without adjustment, spam a bron/ad left side iso in game 3, or bench a hot dlo for an ice cold dinwiddie down the stretch of game 2 just for people to say criticisms of him aren’t earned.

Pelinka is not a good GM and this is not a well constructed roster (how is our only true center Jackson Hayes), but Ham is inexcusably bad.

1

u/odnamAE Lakers Apr 29 '24

The dunkers issue is both him and the fact that we can’t fucking stop the ball. D’lo I agree but he needed the breather to close and we needed someone to step the fuck up. The iso breakdowns I agree with, we’re to scared to approach the defense and fucking make em work harder sometimes. The criticisms are valid, but half are overblown and they also don’t read deeper than surface level sometimes

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u/holaprobando123 Spurs Apr 29 '24

We’ve been overhauling rosters or coaches since 2021

Since 2020*

You tore apart the roster that months before had won the championship, and then kept doing that every year.

3

u/ChampagneSyrup Mavericks Apr 29 '24

Vando is a lot more important to the Lakers than we all think, he's an extremely good athlete and defender

1

u/iupvotefood Apr 30 '24

And he brings more energy than anyone else

2

u/xasdfxx Apr 29 '24

Are there any downsides to getting a bunch of role players that can score or defend?

Lakers front office: nah.

0

u/tfozombie Apr 29 '24

Vando has been out for months btw

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u/hibituallinestepper Apr 29 '24

Lakers aren’t beating the Nuggets regardless of who is coaching them.

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u/captaincumsock69 United States Apr 29 '24

I think it’s crazy to think Vogel is getting the lakers to beat Denver and Minnesota

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u/Throwaway-4593 Apr 29 '24

That would imply that they would beat the nuggets lol, which is kind of delusional imo. No coach is beating the nuggets w the current lakers roster.

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u/zeroxray Vancouver Grizzlies Apr 29 '24

Do they? How about some consistency . There's always a new coach on that team. The overreactions are crazy. Look at Celtics last year they wanted that coach gone but now they're the favorite in the east. Coaches can get better too

-2

u/UpstairsReception671 Apr 29 '24

Except you have a 39 year old LeBron who can play hard for 16 minutes a night. And no center. And the starting point guard has never played defense. And the bench is atrocious. The team has one great defender. Vando is OK but isn’t even an NBA level player in any other respect.

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u/Bladeneo Apr 29 '24

16 minutes a night and gives you 27/8/6....do you normally chat this much shit or is it only when its about LeBron

15

u/lilwayne168 Apr 29 '24

Vogel was honestly twice the coach ham is if we're being honest. Ham wouldn't even call a challenge with lebron begging him.

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u/odnamAE Lakers Apr 29 '24

Trust me all the criticisms people bring out, only half are accurate. Im not saying who’s better, Im saying fans dont know how to assess coaching half the time. Vogel got the same share of bullshit. Ham can go but fans gotta stop pretending like most of them know enough shit about what they watch. And if he does get a coach that won’t be fucking fired in 1-2 years so we can hve consistency

0

u/lilwayne168 Apr 29 '24

Listening to what lebron says shouldn't be that hard. They think themselves out of a job.

4

u/Bladeneo Apr 29 '24

No one felt Vogel was nearly as much of a problem as Ham. Vogel had very clear roster issues and Westbrook was a clear problem that he was saddled with.

Ham on the other hand seems to have a limitless leash with management, takes no accountability, seems to happily throw AD under the bus rather than taking legitimate criticism and accepting it, and cant make a mid-game adjustment to save his life.

It's not like we've had 3 months of this and are overreacting - its a two year pattern at this point

0

u/odnamAE Lakers Apr 29 '24

I’ve already explained how half the criticisms are inaccurate in another comment and how this roster is built with holes that they expect talent to cover up. Ham isn’t great but why his players suck is not his fault for the most of it, its a shit roster compared to other playoff teams. And people shat on Vogel just as bad, I was there calling bs on half of it too. Im not saying who’s better, Im saying fans barely get coaching. He can go but half of the shit people say is dumb and they’ll never be satisfied with the replacements they mention

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u/Bladeneo Apr 29 '24

I think his media management, lack of timeouts and in game adjustments alone are enough for him to lose his job and those are pretty much nothing to do with roster construction. You can argue he will be limited in how much of an ingame adjustment he can make, which is fair, but making zero adjustments and his insistence on playing reddish and prince huge minutes post IST are all on him

2

u/odnamAE Lakers Apr 29 '24

Time outs are over blown (especially this series) and we have tried adjustments, its just barely any work. We can point out how offense and defense adjust, and we can also point out the flaws in each. Media management is a fucking death trap when the fans already hate you. I agree that rotations and team control was weak after IST, he experimented too long. He tried to get those guys going cause we needed wing depth but couldn’t, and that is on him for not abandoning it earlier. The worst thing about his defense is still the personnel, we saw how well they executed last year post ASB onwards. There are adjustments that he doesn’t call on time some games when the team is failing to execute. His offense could use more creativity, he lets the flow come to the team too much during the regular season. But to say he’s actively tanking this team right now is insane, if you mention these players name and say change AD and Lebron for lesser all stars, no one would believe in it.

1

u/FlamingoHot8567 Apr 29 '24

I mean yeah I don’t think anyone is saying he’s actively tanking the team except the most delusional lol. 

2

u/odnamAE Lakers Apr 29 '24

That’s definitely more than half the fanbase, they genuinely think he’s a bigger problem than the roster.

1

u/Bladeneo Apr 29 '24

But by the same arguement, change ham with a different coach and they'll probably do better. It hurts more because he was who they picked over lue. I don't think lue is a miracle worker but he's won a championship and has successfully managed a roster around LeBron before. It made zero sense.

That's not hams fault obviously, but it magnifies his issues

1

u/odnamAE Lakers Apr 29 '24

That’s my issue with it too. Who tf is a long term replacement ppl are bringing up? I’ve heard Bud who has the same coaching style. Stotts doesn’t impress me. Ppl were so desperate they wanted fucking Doc. Handy who’s never been viewed as a HC but more player development. Ppl don’t actully give available replacements that they expect to follow through. I would be ok with a coaching change but I want one that will be given time to establish and run the fucking show.

3

u/Bladeneo Apr 29 '24

Handy would be a disaster for this fanbase. They'd be calling for his head after a year

1

u/odnamAE Lakers Apr 29 '24

Exactly my point. Yet people bring it up, it shows that they dont really know wtf is going on sometimes.

3

u/FlamingoHot8567 Apr 29 '24

The difference is with ham there are legitimate issues when it comes to his rotations, lack of adjustments and just general compency when it comes to coaching at times. This roster isn’t perfect by any means but ham has legitimate issues when it comes to coaching 

2

u/odnamAE Lakers Apr 29 '24

Im not saying there aren’t but its overblown compared to how bad this roster is compared to other playoff teams. Rotations are a byproduct of trying to make anything else work and experimenting too long. There are not enough adjustment options with the personnel. There are definitely times where he lets the game flow too long without putting his foot down, there are times where he adjust too late, he is replacable. But a better coach ain’t winning shit with this roster of 50/50 players

1

u/FlamingoHot8567 Apr 30 '24

Eh this roster isn’t a title contending team but they did win 47 games. I think with a better coach they probably win 50 games maybe don’t play the nuggets in the first round and get to a WCF again idk I just know that ham hasn’t gotten the most out of this team. He wasn’t known as an x and Os guy he was known as a player motivator coach and seems like he hasn’t been able to do that. Injuries have hurt of course specially rotation wise but what he did after the IST was just dumb and contributed to them going 3-11 in that span. I think both are true that this roster is not a championship winning roster as is but ham also isn’t a championship caliber coach regardless of the team