LeBron James needed sunshine after Philly. Darvin Ham brightened L.A.’s day in Detroit

DETROIT — “A lot” needs to change, he’d said.

“I can only speak for myself — I don’t like it,” he’d added.

Throughout his storied 21-year career, LeBron James occasionally has done this. There is a bad game, or maybe a slew of them, and he reacts. He has made demands of the front office to change players around him. He has directed his ire toward coaches. Days or even weeks of tension usually follow.

What happened in Philadelphia to the Los Angeles Lakers on Monday night sparked the above comments. The Lakers lost by 44, the worst margin of defeat James had felt, and he said “a lot” needed to change to make sure no other team beats the Lakers like the Philadelphia 76ers did.

James didn’t get too specific, but he did cite the 22 3-pointers the Sixers dropped on them versus the Lakers’ seven. “We got killed at the 3-point line,” he said.

This is old news, bleached and hung out to dry by a captivating In-Season Tournament for the whole league Tuesday, followed by, yes, a 26-point thrashing of the Detroit Pistons on Wednesday that wasn’t as close as the 133-107 score would indicate.

The Pistons are the NBA ’s worst team and have lost 15 in a row. They are not the best measuring stick for determining whether the Lakers made all the changes James brought up the other night.

“I think we responded well and we played a lot better,” James said after scoring 25 points in Detroit. “We gave ourselves a better chance defensively. We got out to a lot of their shooters that we thought could make shots from the perimeter, but we also controlled the paint. And, you know, that was very key.”

Step One: Iso
Step Two: Dunk pic.twitter.com/lkmmoRHXWw

— Los Angeles Lakers November 30, 2023

James’ comments from Monday were understandable — it is appropriate to wipe the egg off one’s face. But they also seemed to lack important context, such as the Lakers’ having beaten the Cleveland Cavaliers last weekend while short-handed to start the trip, then Sunday touring the new LeBron James museum that opened just south of Cleveland.

James said the sticker shock of being embarrassed in Philadelphia was still with him when he got back to his hotel room Monday night. “It got me a little bit,” he said, but “the next day when we left to come here, it was time to focus on the Pistons.”

What happened next is what matters most. The Lakers traveled together to Detroit, of course, but otherwise kept to themselves Tuesday. When they convened in the hotel ballroom Wednesday morning for a team meeting, James wasn’t brooding or sullen. And neither was coach Darvin Ham, who used the film session to make several points that were, well, positive.

His was not a message of change.

“In my own individual travels, I think that’s the way my life has gone,” Ham said. “Just making the most and getting the most out of any and everything. Even when it was rough times for me as a player, as a coach, it didn’t matter. Just always trying to see the glass half-full. In terms of leading a group as a head coach, I just feel like I’ve been around coaches like that, that dump on their players in a negative way.

“To me, insults very rarely get you improvement. You try to address the things that you need to get better at but more so focus on the things, the positives, and let guys know it’s OK to fail. Because you don’t want to remain a failure. If you fail after you’ve tried and then you learn things about the first attempt, that’ll hopefully make you successful in your next attempt. You just try to focus on being solution-based.

“I just never believed in ‘calling guys out’ or insulting guys, dumping on guys negatively. I call the facts, the facts. If that rubs someone the wrong way, then just try not to make the same mistakes.”

It’s easy for the Lakers to be breathing fresh air now because they did what they were supposed to do against a team whose starters’ average age (21.5 years) is barely older than James’ 21 seasons. If the Lakers had somehow lost (they were never in danger of doing so), the usual alarms that go off when James grows impatient with, say, a Russell Westbrook or a David Blatt or Cavs bench players, would be blaring.

But the Lakers took care of business in Detroit, and before they did, Ham made some points to them. Points about their winning record despite key injuries to Jarred Vanderbilt , Rui Hachimura and Gabe Vincent . Points about the blocks of success they’ve enjoyed, like perhaps — I don’t know if he said this specifically — their performance in the In-Season Tournament: 4-0, with a home quarterfinal against the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday and a trip to Las Vegas on the line. Ham said there were even positives from the game film of Monday night’s debacle.

Forty-four-point losses shouldn’t happen, but they do. Michael Jordan’s Washington Wizards were beaten by that many Jan. 16, 2002, when MJ was 38 (the same age as James for his 44-point beatdown). And what Ham was trying to tell the Lakers, James included, was not to make more of one bad night than it was.

“The biggest thing with (James), he’s a competitor — fierce competitor like myself — and that was a tough one to experience,” Ham said. “I understand his frustrations in terms of suffering a loss like that. But at the end of the day, we’re all ... I get frustrated as well, too. Like I told them this morning, there’s going to be lopsided wins, which we’ve been on the right side of, and lopsided losses we’ve suffered. Close wins, close losses: That’s just the nature of the NBA. Especially today’s NBA. Looking around the league and the way some of the numbers ... people are scoring the ball top to bottom. It’s been nothing short of amazing. So, the biggest thing is within that frustration, it’s OK to be frustrated because you’re passionate about the game. You can’t get emotional and lose our focus, lose our way. ”

In what turned out to be a series of light moments Wednesday, Ham began his pregame news conference joking about his freshly trimmed beard. It’s down to a well-groomed goatee.

“Yeah, man, just following LeBron’s orders — had to change my face,” Ham deadpanned. “I thought he was talking about my beard.”

Ham made another joke when he was asked about the Pistons, who were the opponent that night and a team Ham played for that won an NBA title in 2004. “I’m just happy we’re not coaching against the team I played on (back then),” he said. “The one I played on ... we had seven games holding people under 70 points.”

If the Lakers had somehow lost Wednesday night, that two-liner, and all the positivity Ham carried into the day, would be a distant memory.

Also, James is not a predominantly negative person. Not by a long shot. He has played more minutes and scored more points than anyone ever, and he didn’t do it by scowling for 21 seasons. He has carried entire franchises to NBA Finals when they shouldn’t have made it and won titles when he shouldn’t have won them. Countless role players and coaches have been paid millions because of the success they’ve enjoyed with him.

But on this particular occasion, when a bad game in Philadelphia sent James into one of those dark places he’s been to before, Ham had the self-confidence and wherewithal to bring not just James but all the Lakers back into the light.

“We just took constructive criticism, and we took it to heart and then we applied it to the game,” James said.

(Photo of LeBron James and Stanley Umude: Carlos Osorio / Associated Press)