After reportedly being a finalist in the Indiana Pacers’ coaching search, Milwaukee Bucks assistant coach Darvin Ham wasn’t ultimately selected by the Pacers.
Among the many questions during this pivotal offseason for the Milwaukee Bucks, assistant coach Darvin Ham’s place in this year’s coaching carousel was one that would impact the organization going forward.
Ham has been a popular name across many coaching searches around the league, but it was with the Indiana Pacers where the 47-year-old has seemingly made the biggest impression. Not only had Ham met twice with Pacers management, including once in person, and was reportedly deemed a finalist for the gig.
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But as The Athletic’s Shams Charania first reported Tuesday morning, the Pacers have tabbed Toronto Raptors assistant coach Nate Bjorkgren as their next head coach, leaving Ham having come up short in that specific search.
With the Pacers selecting Bjorkgren as their next head coach, that now leaves the Houston Rockets, Oklahoma City Thunder and the New Orleans Pelicans as the three NBA teams left without a head coach currently in place.
Whether Ham is a candidate in any of those searches hasn’t yet been reported to this point and it remains to be seen whether he will pop up in any of those searches.
Even so, it’s still a tough blow for Ham as he aspires to make the next step in his NBA coaching career, especially as his profile has grown since entering the mix with the Milwaukee Bucks.
That’s certainly not a knock on Bjorkgren by any means, but it seemed the stars aligned for a long-standing assistant coach like Ham to make that step up into the coaching chair in Indianapolis. It ultimately did, just with Bjorkgren instead of Ham.
But as Ham recently talked about on the latest episode of George Karl’s ‘Truth + Basketball’ podcast, he won’t fret too much over what he can’t control in these coaching searches and made mention that his fallback option of staying in Milwaukee is quite cushy:
"“No one knows the timing, no one can pinpoint the time. Going into a situation where you have to present to teams how organized you are, your IQ and hopefully that matches up because a lot of times, the people who are hiring you have a different sense of how they want to play than you played and have success with…When you’re dealing with human beings, you’re going to be dealing with different ideologies and philosophies, so I try not to put too much weight on trying to predict how someone is going to perceive me. I’m just going to put my work in, unveil to them what has made me successful and the programs I have been a part of and allow them to make a choice. If they pursue me, great. If they don’t, hell, my landing spot is as good as any, if not the best, in terms of my consolation prize is going back to Milwaukee and then going to compete for another championship next year. Hell, I’ll take that any day of the week and twice on Sunday.”"
Whether Ham’s name in the three ongoing coaching searches remains to be seen, as of this writing. Either way, Ham’s time will certainly come when it comes to becoming an NBA head coach.