Can Darvin Ham Bring Good Vibes Back to the Milwaukee Bucks?

Darvin Ham's return to the Milwaukee Bucks is not just a homecoming. It will hopefully come with good vibes for both the coach and the team.

It’s June, and the Milwaukee Bucks are not playing basketball. If you’ve perused social media during the NBA Finals, Jrue Holiday’s starring role and the Boston Celtics’ dominance over the Dallas Mavericks has relitigated the blockbuster trade, and the alternate paths that the Bucks and Holiday have taken over the last nine months.

So, Monday brought a nice jolt of good news when ESPN first reported that the Bucks are reuniting with Darvin Ham. Just as he was for four seasons under head coach Mike Budenholzer, Ham will be the lead assistant to Doc Rivers.

Ham comes back to Milwaukee after two seasons in Los Angeles where he took the Lakers to an unlikely run to the Western Conference Finals in 2023 as a seven seed. He finished with a 94-70 record after the Lakers got swept by the Denver Nuggets in the first round of this year’s playoffs.

Just like every coach before him and after, Ham fell victim to the pressure machine that comes with being the coach of the Lakers. The ability to win over superstars like LeBron James and Anthony Davis on a daily basis fluctuates. If you don’t have them, you aren’t going to last very long, even in spite of success.

Over the last few months, Ham’s reputation has taken a hit. Anything and everything regarding his time in Los Angeles has been leaked and made public. Fickle things like his rotation, the distribution of minutes, and wild accusations of a lack of preparation. All while the Lakers are still searching for Ham’s replacement and have now been turned down by University of Connecticut head coach Dan Hurley, who looks to win his third straight NCAA title with the Huskies. The Lakers’ PR machine knows how to chew you up and spit you out, so to speak.

But enough about what Ham is leaving behind. This is more about what Ham is returning back to after his two years in Southern California.

There was little doubt that Rivers was going to further shake up the coaching staff the Bucks had implemented under Adrian Griffin. The early onset of the offseason saw assistant coaches leave, and Marc Stein had reported last month that Rivers was planning to make a push for current Celtics assistant coach Sam Cassell.

With that in mind, Ham’s placement on Rivers’ staff shouldn’t come as much of a surprise as Doc continues to put his imprint on the team after how he arrived to Milwaukee back in January. And Doc has continued to do so after the news regarding Ham. Marc Stein reported Tuesday morning that Greg Buckner, formerly of J.B. Bickerstaff’s coaching staff in Cleveland, will be coming to Milwaukee.

Ham’s third stint with the Bucks as a player and coach comes with familiarity. He’s a link to what the Bucks achieved nearly three years ago, and what the organization has longed to achieve again. Sure, Ham is not returning with Budenholzer, or reuniting with some key members that helped make the championship feat possible and are no longer in Milwaukee, such as Holiday.

However, there are enough key holdovers with Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton, Brook Lopez, Bobby Portis, and Pat Connaughton that Ham has coached before and will do again by linking up with Rivers. And some of those players haven’t hid about how influential Ham had been while being Budenholzer’s right hand man in Milwaukee before going for the Lakers job.

Familiarity is the biggest issue the Bucks have to tackle after a lost season and so many changes that have permeated the organization.

What Ham will find by reconnecting with a Bucks team that remains hungry to achieve playoff success is that they all have more tread on the tires. And above all else, being able to reach and help Damian Lillard further integrate and find chemistry with Antetokounmpo is imperative to make this whole thing go when the season rolls around.

The pieces are in place for the Bucks to find what they had lost internally. Hopefully, Ham can do his part in restoring what had been lost, just as he had done before.