LeBron James does not seem pleased with a play Darvin Ham drew up during a timeout

The Los Angeles Lakers haven't had the spectacular season they were hoping for. After reaching the Western Conference Finals in 2023, the Lakers had high hopes. Sure, star forward LeBron James was getting older, but re-signing D'Angelo Russell and Austin Reaves as well as bringing on Christian Wood were supposed to put the Lakers in a good position to compete for another NBA title.

The season started off hot with the Lakers winning the first-ever in-season tournament. As the season progressed though, their record started taking a turn for the worst.

Since their tourney win over the Indiana Pacers in the in-season tournament finals, the Lakers have gone an abysmal 10-16, pushing their overall record to sub-.500 at 24-25. The Lakers are still in a position to compete in the play-in tournament if the season ended today, but they are certainly not looking as hot as they'd hoped.

Much of their troubles have been pinned on head coach Darvin Ham. Although Ham helped lead the team to the WCF just a season ago, the consensus is that Ham has lost the locker room, and clips like this from their game against the Atlanta Hawks on Jan. 30 certainly aren't helping his case.

Darvin Ham and the Lakers locker room

Despite having a winning record as the Lakers' head coach, Ham doesn't seem to be in his players' good graces. Outside of the clip of James, there have been instances where players have subtly taken jabs at Ham.

Most recently, backup center Christian Wood allegedly subtweeted Ham prior to the team's game against Atlanta. With the team's starting center Anthony Davis out for that game, it would have made sense for Ham to start Wood. After all, Wood was brought on in order to help elevate the team as a bench player, but with Davis out, Wood should have received decent minutes.

Wood was not named the starter though. Ham opted for Jaxson Hayes instead. Just twenty minutes before tipoff, Wood tweeted a simple "Lol."

Wood has since claimed that the tweet had nothing to do with Ham, citing himself a "bad tweeter" as the reasoning for this tweet's timing.

Wood claims that he was attempting to quote tweet something with this tweet, but didn't have the quote ready and just pressed send before he realized his mistake. However, the "Lol" tweet has not been deleted, and Wood has not clarified what he was trying to quote.

Other reports of locker room dysfunction have emerged as well. For example, following a loss to the Miami Heat on Jan. 3, Ham told reporters that the Lakers "can’t find any consistency until we get healthy." This statement came after the Lakers just lost to a Heat team that was without their biggest star, Jimmy Butler. Clearly, the Heat had no trouble finding consistency without their best players. Constant changes to starting lineups, poorly-timed statements to the media, and all-around poor performances from the Lakers have all added fuel to the anti-Ham rhetoric.

LeBron James' history of discontent

LeBron is no stranger to expressing his discontent with his head coaches during games. During the 2018 NBA Finals, LeBron famously held his head in his hands after discovering head coach Tyronn Lue did not use a timeout that could have sealed a victory for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Rumors have also indicated that LeBron James had once queried Pat Riley on a coaching comeback while Erik Spoelstra was the coach of the Heat.

Ironically, the Lakers aren't the only purple and gold team to see their biggest star puzzled at their head coach's play calls right now. Just a day prior to the LeBron incident, LSU women's basketball's Hailey Van Lith expressed similar bewilderment to head coach Kim Mulkey's play call against Mississippi State.

NBA News: With scoring up less than 1% over last season, the NBA is not seeing cause for alarm

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Lakers' LeBron James has quite the reaction to Darvin Ham's play call