Speaking with reporters Chris Haynes and Marc Stein on an episode of their “#thisleague UNCUT” podcast published Tuesday, Ham was clearly still miffed about Dubs coach Steve Kerr calling the Lakers floppers in May. “But the Lakers, they’re a team that plays with a lot of gamesmanship; they understand how to generate some calls,” Kerr said after Golden State’s Game 4 loss. “I thought they took some flops and were rewarded.”
Ham didn’t start out frustrated in the interview. When Haynes asked Ham about the back-and-forth between both teams, the Lakers coach said he had “nothing but the utmost respect for Steve Kerr, the Warriors,” and then distanced himself from Kerr’s tactics.
“When you try to paint a narrative, I think, you know, it’s like playing chess, playing poker, whatever you want to call it,” Ham said. “Guys are trying to give themselves any and every chance, every possible way, to come out on top of a situation and be victorious. Me? I never blame the officiating. … When you hear certain things, man, Rob [Pelinka] will tell you, my coaches will tell you, I struggle to try to be catty and petty and complain about the officiating.”
Ham added that he felt the Lakers got “screwed” early in the season because of some bad calls, but that he doesn’t “want to use that as a crutch.” Then came the pent up frustration.
“When I’m hearing different sound bites and I’m seeing the game within the game being played in the media and all that, I don’t f—k with it, I don’t want nothing to do with it,” Ham said. “I’m sorry, excuse my language, but nothing came easy for me, you know, in terms of crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s and within my career whether I was a player or coaching. You just mentioned, I went through 10 interviews. Nothing has ever come easy for me, and I want it that way …
“By the grace of God, I’m sitting here in this position I’m in, working for the franchise I’m working for, and I’ll be damned if I let someone else try to manipulate the way we approach our game, the competitiveness in which we come with, like we’re trying to disguise and try to pull the wool over someone’s eyes.”
After Ham’s soliloquy, the two hosts noted that Kerr is “a Phil Jackson disciple”; Jackson loved playing mind games in the media. Ham, who briefly interrupted the explanation to call Kerr’s tactic “lame as hell,” then responded with his own pedigree.
“Well I’m a Larry Brown disciple,” Ham said to laughs from Hayes and Stein. “You’re going to get out of your work what you put into it.”