The Sacramento Kings search for a new head coach is in full swing, with candidates announced and interviews expected to begin this week. With seven candidates named so far, it seems only fitting to take some time to break down each candidate.
I’m joined today by our good friend Jill Adge, who hosts The SportsEthos Sacramento Kings podcast. We highly recommend listening to Jill on any Kings topic, but specially when it comes to coaching searches. Jill has done overviews of candidates for the Kings next head coach, as well as deep dives on some of the candidates that I will link in their appropriate articles.
With that, let’s jump into our first candidate.
Darvin Ham
Age: 48
Current Role: Assistant Coach, Milwaukee Bucks
Resume: NBA player from 1996-2005, G-League Assistant from 2008-2010, G League head coach 2010-2011, Lakers assistant 2011-2013, Hawks assistant 2013-2018, Bucks assistant since 2018
From Jill:
Darvin Ham is the Kevin Bacon of the bunch. He has coached under or along side four of the six other candidates who will be interviewed (Brown, D’Antoni, Clifford, and Lee). Maybe one of the coolest things about Darvin is he has a play named after him, The Hammer. As a player he won a ring in Detroit with Dumars and was in Atlanta at the same time as Wilcox. Last but not least, in the NBA’s yearly GM polls Ham tied first with Kenny Atkinson as the best Assistant in the game.
Jill also did a deeper dive on Ham that you can listen to here starting at the 33:25 mark.
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As Jill notes, Darvin Ham is one of the most respected assistants in the NBA, and has been on the radar as a head coach candidate for several years now. He has a strong pedigree, plenty of experience under successful coaches, and has an NBA championship as both a player and as an assistant coach. He’s simply waiting for somebody to give him his shot.
The hardest part of evaluating any assistant seeking to become a coach for the first time is simply that we don’t know what we don’t know. The front office will have to rely on their interview, as well as recommendations from people who have worked with Ham before. Sometimes that results in hiring a Willie Green or an Ime Udoka, other times you end up with Nate Bjorkgren. Ham has been around and on the radar long enough and has worked with enough people over the year that I think he would be a lower risk candidate.
If the Kings hired Darvin Ham as their next head coach, I would be excited about the hire. There would still be question marks, but I would feel good overall and would have hope for next season.
Up next: Mike D’Antoni
Darvin Ham is the Kevin Bacon of the bunch.
Also, for you youngsters in the audience:
Count me in as fully endorsing the Ham Slamwich.
His vision for the team will be Darvin’s Theory of Evolution.
By the time the Kings make the playoffs again, the youngsters are gonna be just like the rest of us…
YAS
Thanks, Greg..
I like this series of articeles………
but I just wonder whether there would be more candidates coming out during the playoff run…(like Q. Synder being fired, I mean the Jazz may take a period of time to make that kind of decision)
I get the idea of waiting for Snyder, but anyone else a bit concerned about the Jazz’s new inability to play defense? Is it a personnel issue or a coaching issue?
Can defense still win a Championship ?
I mean, it’s 2022 already……….
I would put the Jazz inability to play defense as personnel issue over coaching issue…
Sndyer is a top-tier coach……
p.s. Of course, I don’t mind those assistant coach getting their chance
Defense is an important element of ensuring that one team scores more points than another.
It’s true that defense has become harder under the current rulks and with better spacing, but I still very much believe that good teams know to clamp down on D and, perhaps equally important, are capable of covering for glaring weaknesses on defense.
Personally, I love good defense, and right now (amongs others) the Celtics, Heat and Warriors are fun to watch, and among the favorites to win the Championship this season.
An old adage that as an old coach I still believe in. Offense wins games, defense wins championships. I have won so many games even against teams with better skilled players by playing a good man to man defense. Their coach had no idea how to run an offense against our defense.
Exhibit A
Celtics vs Nets
Celtic defense held Irving and Durant to 16 pts each, with Durant commiting too many turnovers
Man, it is something to compare Utah’s run of coaches to the Kings during the Sacramento era –
Utah (4) – Layden, Sloan, Corbin, Snyder
Sacramento – (20) Johnson, Reynolds, Russell, Reynolds, Motta, Hughes, St. Jean, Jordan, Adelman, Musselman, Theus, Natt, Westphal, Smart, Malone, Corbin, Karl, Joerger, Walton, Gentry.
Utah is under newer ownership, so I guess that anything is possible. But Snyder has posted a .585 wp in Utah (basically averaging a 48 win season). I don’t know who Utah would be eyeing that would be an improvement over him. And again, while they are under new ownership, they have always been one of the more pragmatic organizations in the league – much more SA than Sac in style and substance.
I’ll be at least mildly surprised if Snyder gets the axe.
Looks we may find out shortly when the Jazz are eliminated. In that case there’ll be plenty of time to add him to the list.
I think there’s always the possibility that the Kings could look at more candidates. Snyder seems like he could be available, but if he’s available I’m not sure if he would even be interested in the Kings. I don’t think the Kings will wait around hoping someone else becomes available, but they’ll obviously still be paying attention if a new name joins the pool of available coaches.
Which is exactly why I’d be happy with this hire, much more so than any of the retreads on the list so far.
Heck, use the quoted text above as your template. Replace [Darvin Ham] with the name of a coach who has the same/similar background and make your list from there.
He’s currently the top of my list. He just checks all the boxes. He’s won as a player and a coach, comes from an excellent coaching tree, is well respected around the league, and doesn’t appear to have any personality issues. Sign me up!
Ham has been my favorite for a while (before Walton), and he is endorsed by Jill, that is enough for me.
He sounds, in theory, like a candidate to take a chance on to find the next hidden gem instead of a retread. NBA teams love retreads. This being the Kings, I’ll stay happily in the anybody but Mark Jackson camp given our franchise history.
Ham or Charles Lee for me, pls. New Blood needed here in Sac IMO.
Either Ham or Hardy would be fine for me. I would prefer Hardy but seeing that he is only 34 years old, I think he’s a bit too young for a HC especially if we’re talking about the Kings who have an owner that is impatient. I’m afraid he would get fired after 2 years.
Ham would seemingly fit the bill especially if they can somehow convince Clifford to be their lead assistant.
i think he would hold them accountable. Just his playing style and commitment to the game back when he was playing was amazing for a middling guy. He never looked like he took a night off and I don’t think he would put up with guys here doing the same. My vote would be Ham as the clear #1
Ham would be fine. Is Hardy really only 34?
Charles Lee seems intriguing as well.
What about Adrian Griffin?
In “today’s NBA” need a communicator (no bruised egos) and someone that the players will play for. The X’s and O’s can come from lead assistant.
I did like Kenny Atkinson but it seems that someone killed Kenny.
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