Here's five facts you've probably never heard about the new Lakers head coach Darvin Ham.
Ham also has experience with the Lakers organization. After working as an assistant and head coach in the NBA D-League, he was an assistant under Mike Brown with the Lakers from 2011 to 2013. Since then he's worked under Mike Budenholzer, a Gregg Popovich protégé, in Atlanta and Milwaukee.Ham grew up in Saginaw, Michigan. At the time, Saginaw, Detroit, and Flint had the highest violent crime rates in the state.
"I could have been dead so easily," Ham told reporters back in 2011."It set a foundation in me to never take anything for granted. So I'm not afraid of failure, or success. I'm only afraid of not being authentic."Ben Wallace Darvin Ham and Lindsey Hunter of the Detroit Pistons holds the Larry O'Brien trophy after beating the Los Angeles Lakers in game five of the NBA Finals to win the NBA championship 15 June, 2004 at The Palace in Auburn Hills, MI.
Ham had a son while he was in high school and needed to provide for his family, so he joined the Jacksonville Barracudas of the United States Basketball League after the draft. His team won the USBL championship and it got him an invite to the Denver Nuggets Summer League team where he eventually made the team for the 1996-97 season.