The Los Angeles Lakers have reportedly hired Milwaukee Bucks assistant Darvin Ham as their next coach, and the timing of the news was interesting.
With this gig, Ham will become a first-time head coach, so it’s hard to make an assessment one way or another about how he will impact the team from a schematic perspective.
The hire wasn’t particularly surprising. As we wrote earlier this month, he was emerging as a favorite for the job. The Lakers tend to hire folks with connections to the organization, and Ham was an assistant coach and thus has prior history with ownership and other important decision-makers.
However, the timing of the announcement made me a little suspicious. As noted by iconic NBA Twitter personality Rob Perez, this was a “news dump” for the ages and one we probably should have predicted from a mile away.
one of the best news dumps ever right here:
1) they waited until end of the pregame show to leak so they couldnt talk at length about it.
2) tipoff of conference finals about to happen
3) Memorial Day Weekend in which linear networks wont cycle news until TuesdayA+ well done https://t.co/hXFSIdnT0q
— Rob Perez (@WorldWideWob) May 28, 2022
For those unfamiliar with a news dump, it’s a trend noticed primarily in political reporting. If you want to learn more about the topic, you can listen to this episode of NPR’s All Things Considered.
But the idea is that, if you leak news on a Friday, you can avoid media scrutiny and criticism because many reporters and news consumers are beginning their weekend.
Of course, we don’t know what the Lakers were intending. Maybe it was simply a coincidence, but the impact remains the same. In this case, not only did the news break on a Friday evening, but it also happened at the beginning of a holiday weekend — so many individuals are heading out of town.
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski also broke the news just minutes before tipoff for Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals.
So instead of all the media pundits debating the merits of hiring a first-time head coach who may have been cheaper than a veteran with more experience, attention will instead immediately shift to Celtics-Heat.
It was a savvy move, and likely intentional, by the higher-ups for the Purple and Gold. But it didn’t go unnoticed, and we’re going to draw attention to it by highlighting others who shared similar suspicions.
