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A lot of noise has been made in recent days about whether or not Darvin Ham and Frank Vogel deserved to be fired for what transpired this season with the Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns, respectively. Ham has been on the hot seat ever since the Lakers won the first-ever NBA In-Season Tournament in December due to their inability to remain a consistent championship threat and the fact that they lost to the Denver Nuggets in five games during the first round of the playoffs. In the desert, Vogel and the Suns concluded their first year of the Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal, and Devin Booker trio by being swept in the first round at the hands of the Minnesota Timberwolves.
As the Lakers and Suns evaluate their immediate futures and the status of their two head coaches, Hall of Famer Charles Barkley gave his bold take on Wednesday night during TNT’s Inside the NBA regarding both coaches remaining with their respective teams for the 2024-25 season.
“We watch all the games and all of the talk shows. A lot of these people on television, they’re cowards because they want the players to like them. They don’t want to do their job, which is to tell the truth,” Barkley adamantly claimed. “I just want to say this about coaching: Anybody who thinks the reason the Lakers suck is because of Darvin Ham or the reason the Suns suck is because of Frank Vogel, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Frank Vogel is a hell of a coach. Darvin Ham is a hell of a coach trying to get his career started.
“For all of you punks, idiots, and jacka**es on other networks, who want to be media that want all the players to like y’all, do your damn jobs. The Lakers suck, and the Suns suck because of the players. It has nothing to do with the coaches.”
Barkley went on to claim that whoever put “them trash a** teams together” should be the ones met with the brunt of the force regarding all of these recent firing rumors.
Futures of Darvin Ham, Frank Vogel uncertain
Both Ham and Vogel led their teams to the playoffs this season. In fact, the Lakers won a total of 47 games, and the Suns won a total of 49 games. Whereas Vogel won a championship in Los Angeles before arriving in Phoenix, Ham has an In-Season Tournament championship to his name as well as an appearance in the Western Conference Finals during his first season with the Lakers.
A decision by either organization to fire their head coach would be shocking in the sense that these two organizations have found success during the regular season this past season. The problem is that NBA coaches only seem to be judged based on how their team performs in the playoffs, which is sometimes out of their control.
The Lakers are set to review what exactly went wrong this season, and Ham’s job security is very much a question mark at this time. Recent reports suggest that the team’s stakeholders believe Ham will be fired after just two seasons with the organization.
Vogel and his future with the Suns appears to be a little bit more optimistic after owner Mat Ishbia spoke to reporters on Wednesday, shutting down recent rumors suggesting that the team has already begun discussing whether or not they will be making a change on the sidelines.
“Here’s how I think about it: Coach, GM, players — I’m not going to specifically get into each of them,” Ishbia stated. “I have not had one discussion. I know there are media reports and stuff that is just not true. Not one discussion about my GM, my coach; we are trading players now supposedly in the media. Not one discussion has even been had, let alone a decision to be made.”
The Suns owner also claimed that “it’s not even close” regarding whether Vogel did a better job than Monty Williams would have done if he wasn’t fired by the organization at the conclusion of the 2022-23 season.
The Lakers and Suns both have huge decisions to make regarding who the figurehead on their respective sidelines will be, a decision that could make or break their chances of winning a championship during the 2024-25 season.
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