The Los Angeles Lakers are currently in the midst of looking for a new head coach after pulling the plug on the Darvin Ham experiment last week following the team's second straight postseason loss to the Denver Nuggets. Ham had what could generously be categorized as an up and down tenure with the Lakers, guiding the team to the Western Conference Finals in his first year but also rolling out some puzzling lineups and having an apparent disdain for calling timeouts to stop other teams' momentum.

In fact, not only was Ham fired, but so was the rest of the Lakers' coaching staff, including assistant Phil Handy, who has won multiple championships with LeBron James and has garnered a reputation as a fan of both fans and players during his Lakers tenure.

This all begs the question of who the Lakers will next bring in to patrol their sidelines, and the good folks over at the BetOnline Sportsbook have some ideas.

Currently, podcaster JJ Redick is viewed as the favorite to land the position with +150 odds. Up next is current Los Angeles Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue–who still has a year left on his contract–at +250 odds. Following those two are a host of other names, including former Milwaukee Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer, Budenholzer disciple Kenny Atkinson, and others.

Making things a bit more interesting is that James and Redick recently launched their “Mind The Game” podcast, where they break down actual plays and tactical elements from games instead of spewing well-worn, cliche-laden narratives, as fans are commonly treated to in national media NBA discourse.

How much of the Lakers' issues were coaching-related?

While it's true that the Lakers probably didn't have a championship-caliber roster in their locker room this past year, it's also true that Darvin Ham and his staff didn't come close to maximizing the talent that was available to them.

Inexplicably, it took Ham the majority of the season to finally go back to the starting lineup that the team used to propel itself into the Western Conference Finals a year ago, as both Austin Reaves and Rui Hachimura spent time coming off of the Lakers' bench for no apparent reason this year. It's fair to wonder how much this inconsistency and lack of coaching trust played a role in the relative struggles of that duo in the loss to the Nuggets.

Ham also had a propensity to not call timeouts to stop other teams' runs, which is one of the most basic elements of NBA coaching. This manifested itself in the worst way during the Lakers' Game 2 loss to Denver, in which Ham could not be bothered to try to stop the Denver momentum as the Lakers saw a 20-point second half lead crumble.

In any case, whoever the next person is to coach the Lakers will have an intense amount of media scrutiny and the natural pressure that comes with coaching the smartest player in NBA history in LeBron James. Good luck.