Welcome to Layup Lines, For the Win’s basketball newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Have feedback for the Layup Lines Crew? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey. Now, here’s Mike Sykes
We should've known Darvin Ham was cooked as soon as LeBron James decided to podcast with JJ Redick
LeBron might really be the GOAT. Michael Jordan could never pull this shadow operation off.
Happy Friday, folks! Welcome back to Layup Lines. Thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you’ve had a great week so far.
Darvin Ham certainly can’t say the same. The Lakers officially fired Ham shortly after the Nuggets knocked LA out of the playoffs. Reports surfaced that he was unlikely to return as the head coach of the team after losing the series. LA didn’t wast any time.
There’s already a list of replacements being floated out there with a bunch of names that we’ve already heard before. Kenny Atkinson, Mike Budenholzer, and a few others.
But then there’s JJ Redick: The guy who somehow turned into the savior of NBA media overnight after retiring. He’s a serious candidate to replace ham, according to reporting from ESPN.
Our Bryan Kalbrosky thinks it’d be a solid, but questionable, move:
“It is clear that Redick and James have incredible chemistry together, especially when you listen to their Mind The Game podcast. But while obviously one of the smartest basketball minds in the media landscape right now, Redick does not have coaching experience beyond the youth level.”
I’m not sure that I have a take here other than this feels like Darvin Ham being scapegoated. It’s not his fault this roster was built so pourously. The Lakers lost everything with the Russell Westbrook trade and the effects are still lingering.
Other than that, there’s a comedic angle here that I can’t stop thinking about.
From the moment that LeBron James and JJ Redick sat down together for their first episode of the Mind the Game podcast, as Kalbrosky pointed out, they had some amazing chemistry. They think about basketball in similar ways. I realized how obvious that was from the first episode.
That was also the moment that I realized exactly how cooked Darvin Ham was as the Lakers’ head coach. If he was already on the hot seat, then I know that seat felt like a gas stove by the end of episode one. By episode five? Whew, boy. All four burners were on. It was over.
This also might be one of the things we have to add to LeBron James’ GOAT resume. Michael Jordan never used a podcast to conduct a shadow interview of an NBA head coach. He probably didn’t even know what a podcast was until his son decided to do one for…reasons.
Anyway, I have no idea how this will end or who the Lakers will hire. I do badly want it to be JJ Redick just for the storylines next year. It’ll be some incredible theater, at least, even if it might not lead to the greatest basketball.
The biggest loser is the expensive one
(Photo by Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images)
CJ McCollum’s collective bargaining agreement is doing the job it was intended to do, folks.
As the president of the NBA Player’s Association, McCollum led the negotiations with the NBA for the league’s latest CBA extension. That extension came with new rules that targeted the league’s most expensive teams in hopes of stopping superteams from forming in the future.
It’s doing just that. The most expensive teams in the league are getting booted out of the playoffs left and right. The Bucks, the 76ers, maybe the Clippers soon. It’s bad out here, y’all. Real bad.
Seven of the top 10 teams in salary have been eliminated from the playoffs this year, according to ESPN’s Bobby Marks.
Top 10 in Salary
1. Golden State- ELIMINATED
2. LA Clippers (down 3-2)
3. Phoenix- ELIMINATED
4. Boston
5. Milwaukee- ELIMINATED
6. Denver
7. Miami- ELIMINATED
8. LA Lakers- ELIMINATED
9. New Orleans- ELIMINATED
10. Philadelphia- ELIMINATED— Bobby Marks (@BobbyMarks42) May 3, 2024
Only the Clippers (No. 2), the Celtics (No. 4) and the Nuggets (No. 6) remain. If the Clippers lose Game 6 to the Mavericks, that number jumps to eight.
The lesson here: You can’t just buy your way to an NBA title anymore. You can try! But it probably won’t work — just ask the Suns.
Shootaround
— Patrick Beverley apologized to Malinda Andrews for being a complete jerk. Here’s Charles Curtis with more.
— Prince Grimes has betting odds on teams that might draft Bronny (that aren’t the Lakers).
— Charles Barkley was spot on with his defense of Darvin Ham and Frank Vogel. Here’s Bryan Kalbrosky with more.
— The Knicks fans’ Game 6 takeover in Philly still blows my mind.
That’s a wrap, folks! Thanks so much for reading today. We appreciate you. Have a fantastic weekend. We’ll be right back at it on Monday. Until then! We out.
-Sykes 