How Kentavious Caldwell-Pope triggered Darvin Ham haters without mentioning ex-Lakers coach

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope didn’t mention Darvin Ham.

He most likely wasn’t even thinking about the former Lakers coach.

But comments KCP made on Wednesday’s episode of Draymond Green’s podcast unintentionally brought back some painful memories for L.A. sports fans who hold Ham responsible for the Lakers’ shortcomings last season.

Caldwell-Pope was speaking about his recent playoff run with the Denver Nuggets, the team with which he won an NBA title in 2023. This year, however, after defeating the Lakers four games to one in the first round, the Nuggets got knocked out by the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Western Conference semifinals.

The veteran guard was trying to make the point that the Nuggets had exerted so much energy in a tight race for the top seed in the conference — eventually finishing at No. 2 behind the Oklahoma City Thunder and ahead of Minnesota — that they had nothing left in the tank for the postseason.

Read more: Olympics give LeBron James another chance to show his Midas touch

“You know how like towards the playoffs, guys get their rest?” said Caldwell-Pope, who signed with the Orlando Magic as a free agent this month. “Well, I feel like that’s where we spent most of our energy and time trying to get that first place, playing catch-up. And then we get to the playoffs, we have no gas. We felt like the Lakers should have beat us. Like we was down every game — at least 10 to like highest maybe 20-something?”

The Lakers led the Nuggets by at least 12 points in each of the first four games — including a 20-point third quarter lead in Game 2 — and held a nine-point lead in the third quarter of Game 5 but were only able to hang on to win Game 4. L.A. also led at halftime in every game.

Green emphatically agreed with Caldwell-Pope that the Lakers should have won that series.

So did many fans on X (formerly Twitter), almost all of whom went a step further to blame Ham for the Lakers’ inability to hold onto a significant lead in every game. One fan tweeted, “KCP basically said the Lakers didn’t beat them because of Darvin Ham.” Another wrote, “My hate for Darvin Ham just reignited in a furious flame.”

One person posted a photo of Ham with his hands in his pockets, an image that for many Lakers fans has come to symbolize a perceived lack of action on the former coach’s part when the momentum started to swing away from his team.

Read more: Darvin Ham survived the streets, a stray bullet and intense grief to coach the Lakers

To be fair, some fans also faulted players D’Angelo Russell and Rui Hachimura, both of whom had underwhelming series against the Nuggets.

Ham, who led L.A. to a surprising Western Conference finals appearance during his first season as coach in 2022-23, was fired by the Lakers on May 3. He is now an assistant coach with the Milwaukee Bucks. The Lakers hired JJ Redick as head coach June 20.

Caldwell-Pope spent four seasons with the Lakers, winning the 2020 NBA title inside the COVID-19 bubble near Orlando. He also discussed that experience with Green.

Read more: LeBron James and Coco Gauff selected as U.S. flagbearers for Paris Olympics

“You’re playing a season, and the season’s shut down. Don’t know if we’re even gonna come back and play basketball,” Caldwell-Pope said. “We saw the regular season and how we was playing and were like … what if we can’t come back, ’cause we already had in our mind like, man, this is our championship regardless of if COVID stopped it or not. …

“Once we knew the season was starting back up in the bubble, we was hyped. We was ready to go get our championship like we wanted. Then the season stopped again in the bubble. These things have people minds messed up, like, all right I’m ready to go home. Forget basketball. I’m so grateful — I appreciate all my teammates at the time. Their minds were on that championship. They weren’t ready to go. They came here for a reason and we wanted it.”

Caldwell-Pope added, “We wanted that one so bad, we would’ve jumped through flaming hoops for it.”

Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.