At what point do Lakers fans owe Darvin Ham an apology?

[sikma42]

Knecht has not even played meaningful minutes in these playoffs at all, he played during a blowout briefly when the game was already lost. He has not had to play meaningful minutes and JJ is refusing to even attempt to test the waters with him. He didn't use game [emoji[emoji[emoji6]][emoji[emoji6][emoji6]]] to feel them out, instead he did the inexperienced coach decision and had a rigid way to play and it didn't work. He is not an experienced playoff coach.

Using a playoff game to "feel a guy out" when you're trying to win usually isn't a hot move. I don't think it would have helped them any, IMHO.

The point of playing Vanderbilt is to offset the load on LeBron. In the playoffs you are as good as your weakest link. If Vanderbilt is the weakest player on the floor, but he's at least neutral in minutes that allow LeBron to come back and win, that's what good coaching can do.

He isn't neutral, though. Nor was Knecht, for that matter.

You're ignoring the context entirely, it's the [emoji[emoji[emoji6][emoji6]][emoji[emoji[emoji6]][emoji[emoji6]]]]nd half, LeBron was not doing much at all on offense anyways. Why are you playing him purely for defense when you have Vanderbilt to try and fill that role and it will give LeBron a chance to rest a little to get back in and pick up more steam on offense.

Lebron was doing it better, frankly, and they needed it from him.

What JJ has proven is that he is a rigid coach, he lacks the true experience to test things out in the playoffs for the sake of winning. Now you might argue "oh but he's inexperienced" THAT WAS LITERALLY THE SAME CASE FOR DARVIN HAM, and yet he actually got them further once he got buy in. The Lakers fixed their roster with the WB trade and then they went on a run.

I absolutely do not think it was an inexperience thing. I do not agree with any of the alternatives to playing Lebron those minutes, tbh.

Thoughts on using elimination game to feel out a guy who hasn’t played in months?


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[Godymas]

I think it's interesting how the Lakers won 47 games last year and won 50 games this year and that jumped them from the 8 seed to the 3 seed and despite that they still were outed in the first round in 5 games.

I mean they went on such MASSIVE run to close out the year, but all in all, with the Luka trade and JJ hopping on, and all the hype because of their win streak, they only won 3 more games?

[EmpireFalls]

I honestly think their roster was better last year.

[tsherkin]

Thoughts on using elimination game to feel out a guy who hasn’t played in months?

*shrug*

What he tried didn't work. He tried something else. We'll see what happens next year, and if the roster is any better. If it is, and he's still running into rotation issues, I'll get judgier, for sure.