12:58pm: The Lakers will keep Phil Handy, who is considered one of the league’s best assistant coaches, tweets Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports. Handy accepted Ham’s offer to remain with the team.
11:56am: As Darvin Ham begins to build his coaching staff with the Lakers, assistants David Fizdale, Mike Penberthy and John Lucas III have been told that they won’t return next season, tweets Dave McMenamin of ESPN.
Ham has talked to several potential candidates about joining him in L.A. and that process is expected to continue for weeks, adds ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link). A report Monday indicated that Rasheed Wallace is among the names being considered.
Fizdale, a longtime assistant and a former head coach with the Grizzlies and Knicks, joined the Lakers last season. He has been mentioned as a possible replacement for Quin Snyder in Utah.
Lucas was also in his first year with the team, while Penberthy joined Frank Vogel‘s staff when he was hired in 2019 and was promoted to a front-of-the-bench role last offseason.
If Fizdale was the defensive coach, he deserves to be fired. Lucas is a smart guy though, and an asset.
Lol their roster was missing key pieces the previous year, and then lost more of those pieces heading into this season, and didn’t replace them. Doesnt matter who coached them, or what Russell Westbrook did, or who was healthy or not. The roster was flawed
The roster was flawed, but that was *because* of the terrible trade for Westbrick. Unless they (unlikely) get at least 72 games out of both LeBron and AD, in addition to offloading Westbrick, it’s hard to see how they fix it moving forward. The coaching really doesn’t matter.
Moving their only remaining wing player in that trade did hurt, but they were already missing pieces there, and then didnt replace them afterwards. Westbrook didnt preclude them from doing that, and also wasnt the reason they decided to replace Marc Gasol with DeAndre Jordan for no reason, and bring in a bunch of guards they didnt need
Penberthy is such a super nice guy
Are we surprised they fired everyone . What new coach says hey let’s keep the same staff . They keep who they like if any and drop the rest
What was surprising was that the info available earlier said that most of the ACs would be retained and Handy let go. The reverse happened. If you did not read that, then you are likely un-surprised. If you did and have recall, then yes, at least surprised.
Some of my posts make no sense now. [Insert joke here!]
These type decisions indicates who individually is calling the shots, since disagreements will happen. In a chaotic team like the Lakers, I look forward to hearing the rumors.
Handy is the liason between LeBron and the staff…
Retaining him was a no-brainer.
I have been maneuvering around that issue on HR wondering. You sound confident about it, not sure I will research further.
They argue but that’s what LJ does if he’s serious.
Take that for Data
Just got rooked by Coach Ham
Who doesn’t want a Handy on the lake?
LAL haven’t had a lot of good news this year, but I think it’s at least a good sign that Ham is picking his own staff. Also, that he targeted the one first rate AC from the prior staff who (like Ham) is actually a complete basketball coach (not a counselor, preacher, or consultant).
Too many first time HC’s get stuck (either by FO obstinance or their own insecurity) with coaching staffs that were assembled to look good on paper, vs help the HC implement his vision for the team. AC’s having diverse coaching backgrounds and skill sets can be a good thing, but it’s not as important as staff cohesion.
They can have all the so called coaches they want but we know he really runs that team.
Well he oughtta come in Handy
Fizdale is one of the worst ever to pretend to coach. Should of kept Lucas though